Former MTA consultant acquitted in Mistragate criminal case

Hotelier George Micallef, who in 2008 was accused of making a false declaration to MEPA to facilitate the development of a disco on the Mistra land owned by former MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, was this Friday acquitted of all charges.

In 2006, Micallef was working as a private tourism consultant for the Malta Tourism Authority when he was approached to compile report on the development of Mistra Bay's tourist regeneration. The area fell within a Natura 2000 area of special conservation.

Two years later, during the 2008 elections, Labour leader Alfred Sant claimed that Pullicino Orlando had used his influence on Micallef, to include the development of an open-air disco as an acceptable form of development in Mistra Bay.

Sant alleged corruption, after Pullicino Orlando denied any knowledge that a third party had applied for a MEPA permit to build an open-air disco on the MP's land in Mistra, on behalf of Dominic Micallef, the owner of Tattinger's Disco in Rabat.

But Sant later revealed a rental contract between the MP and Micallef, confirming that Pullicino Orlando was about to rent his land for the siting of a disco for 15 years.

The application for the disco was submitted to MEPA back in 2005 by Ian Sultana, the cousin of Dominic Micallef. But in September 2005, despite a refusal from the planning directorate because the development would be located within a Natura 2000 site, MEPA's Development Control Commission (DCC) approved the application.

In April 2006, the DCC requested more detailed drawings and in response they received a report from private consultant George Micallef, who favourably recommended the development and said that the development was in conformity with current tourism policies. In 2007, he was later appointed as an MTA consultant.

In August 2006, the MEPA executive committee directed the DCC to consider that the project could not be justified, since the area in question was outside development zones (ODZ). The DCC had ignored the recommendations by the planning directorate and the disco was approved without being subjected to an environmental impact assessment.

George Micallef claimed that throughout 2007, he was constantly "harried" by Pullicino Orlando in repeated communications, and then when an environment ministry official asked him to have MTA write a detailed report to substantiate its support to the disco application.

He attended a meeting with Pullicino Orlando, Lawrence Vassallo - the development services liaison office within MEPA - and the MEPA chairman and a member of the DCC, which had later issued the ODZ permit.

He also asked Mario Attard, the chairman of MTA's Product Development Directorate, to approve the development. Signed by Attard's secretary on his behalf, the report explicitly stated that "MTA's supporting this project because it is in line with the objective of the tourism policies... and I am also forwarding you extracts from an internal report of the Directorate on the project, with the relevant points that particularly support this project."

According to Mario Attard's testimony, the internal report was however "inexistent".

On his part, George Micallef told the court he was under the impression that his 2006 report was at the MTA, and he consequently referred to it as a directorate's report.

"Micallef assumed that since the existent tourism policies did not change between May 2006 and October 2007, he could refer to his first report as a directorate's report," Magistrate Marseann Farrugia said.

In her decree, the magistrate said it was not enough for the prosecution to base its arguments on the fact that the report was inexistent. "In order to find Micallef guilty of making a false declaration in the report, the court must prove that he knew he was aware of this. Even though everything indicated to a false declaration, the prosecution  did not indicate where the accused made this declaration."

Magistrate Farrugia said Micallef had been under the impression that his report was in the files of the MTA, consequently referring to it as a directorate's report.

Micallef was subsequently found not guilty and acquitted of making false declarations or information to a public authority for the advantage of a third party and of relapsing.