Vince Farrugia cashed €4,000 ‘gift’ from Sandro Chetcuti ahead of MEP campaign

The man accused of causing grievous bodily harm on GRTU director Vince Farrugia today presented two cheques of €4,000 he had donated to Farrugia towards his electoral campaign for Nationalist MEP in 2009.

Sandro Chetcuti, 41, formerly a GRTU official, is accused of having assaulted Farrugia at the GRTU offices on 11 March, 2010, but the police's initial charge of involuntary homicide was downgraded to GBH.

The property developer presented the two cheques this morning in court, during the compilation of evidence against him.

Chetcuti insisted he was not a violent man, accusing Farrugia of deliberately exaggerating the incident, using also political influence to destroy him. "I know what I did was wrong, but I swear that all I did was to accidentally hit Farrugia's spectacles when I raised my hands, when I reacted to him coming up to my face, poking my side with his finger and shouting at me that I was a fraudster. At no point did I ever beat him," Chetcuti told Magistrate Edwina Grima.

"I was also wrong - and I say this because it was said in the heat of the moment - that before I left the GRTU building and saw Vince making a scene and shouting 'look what he did to me' that I turned around and told him, 'I will kill you, you bastard'," he said.

Appearing confident in his testimony, Chetcuti spoke of the events that led up to the incident, specifically of an SMS he sent to Farrugia mistakenly rather than to its intended recipient, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat.

Chetcuti said the SMS read: 'I met Vince and he told me that I was a fool to be associated with you, because he would have given me a high post with government.'

Chetcuti then said he immediately sent a new text message to Farrugia, asking him whether it was him who had sent him the SMS, in an attempt at making him believe that their phones had been hacked. Chetcuti said he even went to Vodafone to obtain an itemised bill to prove the message went to nobody else, except to Vince.

The day after the SMS incident, Chetcuti held a meeting with Farrugia. He told the court he was "worried and anxious" on the morning of 11 March. "When I returned to the GRTU offices, I found Joe Attard [Green MT chief executive, a GRTU subsidiary] and he told me not to give the matter any weight."

Chetcuti said he sat at the top of the GRTU's boardroom table, while Farrugia sat next to him, when he started to shout, accusing him of leaking information to the Labour Party.

"When I brought out the itemised Vodafone bill, he started to shout, snatched the papers out of my hands and waved them in front of my face, calling me a fraudster."

Chetcuti said Farrugia physically liften him off the chair and pushed him towards the the door in an attempt to kick him out of the boardroom and out of the building. "Vince kept shouting at me, calling me a fraudster, poking me with his finger in my side, threatening to destroy me, and putting his face into mine. I tried to be calm until I reacted, turned around and waived my hands. I know that I hit his spectacles which went flying."

He then said Farrugia "threw himself" onto the floor, shouting 'look what he has done to me' ("ara x'għamilli").

Chetcuti claimed Farrugia had faked the entire incident, and said that when GRTU president Paul Abela came into the boardroom he appeared surprised at the reaction.

"But while I was walking out and looking for my car key inside my pocket, I could see that Vince was being helped by his secretary into the bathroom, still shouting 'look at what he did to me' and other things. It was here that out of instantaneous reaction, I turned around and shouted that I would kill him.

"I told him 'I will kill you, you bastard' - it was wrong, I shouldn't have. I am not a violent man," Chetcuti said.

Chetcuti said that as he walked out of the GRTU offices and into Republic Street, he noted GRTU official Philip Fenech talking to another person near Cordina Café. "At that point, his phone started to ring. It was police inspector James Grech, asking what had happened. I told the inspector that I was on my way to the police station to file a report - and that is what I did, little knowing that all hell was breaking loose, and that Farrugia had to started to exert tremendous political pressure upon me to destroy me."

Chetcuti said that it started to become all too clear to him when he was at the Valletta police station, when an officer warned him to be "cautious" because politics was taking over: "He told me not to take it personally against the Inspector, who had received orders from above."

New text messages revealed

This morning's sitting in court led to the revelation of a number of new text messages sent by Vince Farrugia to Sandro Chetcuti before the incident of March 11.

In a text sent at 8:17am on December 17, 2009 Vince Farrugia told Chetcuti in the wake of the Budget that year: "Tony Abela and Gino Cauchi's words. Labour has forgotten that the only time it was elected to government in 23 years was all to my credit in 1996. When I tried to save them from their disastrous anti-EU stance, they turned against me, with insults and spreading false rumours about me and my children. The architects of all this were Tony Abela and George Vella. A party which rides on hate and instigatates against who served can never win. Rather than finding ways to heal the wounds, they pour more salt. You heard me yesterday on TVM news where I told them who speaks strongly and with so much influence. Even the Prime Minister called me this morning to tell me that he didn't expect me to be so strong about the tariffs. And next Monday I will address a press conference and hand out a detailed statement about the tariffs which will wreck them. Let the storm hit. I can only get stronger. Everybody is a captain when the sun shines."

While Chetcuti explained that he was regularly being bullied by Farrugia during the GRTU council sittings, often humiliating him for being Labour leaning, lawyer Emanuel Mallia who appeared for his defence, read out a number of other text messages which Farrugia had sent him, before and after the Budget which finance minister Tonio Fenech had presented to parliament in November 2009.

The texts, Chetcuti said were the prelude to the incident he had with Farrugia, who kept his tempo with his insults and manouvering to have him ousted from the GRTU council.

Chetcuti presented a batch of block votes which Farrugia had wanted his henchmen to distribute among the GRTU members, where it was clear that he wanted Chetcuti - until then Vice-President of the GRTU - out.

The batch of block votes was passed on to him by Joe Attard, the chief executive at Green MT, who in the previous sitting had denied ever talking to Chetcuti about Vince Farrugia's plans.

"Attard clearly betrayed me, and the reason is clear, because whoever goes against Vince suffers serious consequences," Chetcuti said.

While texting Chetcuti with political messages, like on November 6, 2009 when he told him: "PN is lead by big leaders, PL is lead by the smurfs." (Il-PN il-kbar imexxuh. Il-PL taz-zghar u mmexxi min-nani."

Another text read: "Empty! To be a Prime Minister you must have quite a spine. I have worked with them all. I saw KMB cry. Even Eddie suffered, and so did Alfred Sant and was at Harvard and led MDC. I wasn't put there for nothing. To sing in a square is not enough. We are moving forward with Tonio [Fenech] The Budget is to focus on our proposals. What was copied to Joseph are in, unless Tonio doesn't get a change of heart."

Farrugia also tells Chetcuti: "You still have not understood that there is so much hatret from trade unions and those who dominate the PL towards contractors, developers and all those who have made it in this country."

In another text, Farrugia also comments about the Budget proposals for 2010, saying: "They have screwed Mario of Burmarrad Commercials big time, and all those who import cars, and also our own Green MT by imposing a €1,000 licence fee for every member. I told off Alfred [Camilleri] (finance ministry permanent secretary) They thought I don't read everything and that they could hide their shit. You stay put and next Friday bring your friends to the press conference."

Dissuading from running for MEP

Sandro Chetcuti told the court that he did all he could to convince Farrugia from not standing as an MEP candidate on behalf of the PN.

"I tried to explain to him that his standing would harm the GRTU's credibility, but he just wouldn't listen. Instead he used insults and humiliating remarks towards me, even in front of the GRTU council," he said.

Chetcuti asked me to help him before the campaign, and I told him that I would only help him personally, and besides giving him two cheques which amounted to €4,000, I also paid a caterer for a reception he held, and paid for the printing of his leaflets. "Instead, Vince tried to destroy me."

The witness added that the text messages were a "miracle" which saved him from falling deeper into Farrugia's web of political influence, which was deliberately sought to have him crucified.

"I thank God for the fact that the text messages led to revealing the kind of man Vince Farrugia really is. God is great and I believe that he actually landed in this case, because the truth has prevailed," Chetcuti told the court.

He added that for months, he was repeatedly provoked by words and actions, and felt preoccupied at the state of affairs at the GRTU.

"We were seeing many members leave us, and many complaining about Farrugia's betrayal of the association by standing for a political party. It was unacceptable, but he just challenged everybody, and ran roughshod over everybody," Chetcuti said.

The case continues on February 27.