High-ranking policemen accused of cover-up on harassment charge

Two assistant police commissioners, Carmelo Magri and Martin Sammut, are to be summoned to explain why a police officer was only charged with breaching the peace when he should have also been charged with harassing and threatening his former partner, who is also a policewoman.

Magistrate Carol Peralta gave the order after he heard lawyer Arthur Azzopardi allege that the high-ranking officers were covering up for the constable, who forms part of the Drugs Squad, and that this was an attempt to constructively dismiss his client.

Azzopardi told the court that last October, PC Oliver Borg had called at the house of his former partner in Mosta, banging on her front door, blaspheming and threatening her and her new partner. A similar incident had allegedly also taken place at the police depot, after which the victim had filed an official complaint, said the lawyer.

The two incidents had been reported separately, one at the Mosta police station and the other at the Depot itself. 

Azzopardi had been assured that the case was being investigated by the Police Internal Affairs Unit, but a subsequent follow-up found that the unit had no file on the matter. In fact, his client had recently been contacted by the PIAU to submit all the evidence she had to them as they had no file.

Also inexplicable, said the lawyer, was the fact that he had been assured by an Assistant Police Commissioner that PC Borg had been notified, but when the day of the court sitting arrived, the court was told that the attempt to notify the accused was unsuccessful.

“How could it have been unsuccessful?” asked Azzopardi. “The policeman is stationed at the drugs squad – all they would have to do is cross the police courtyard to find him.”

When the charges were filed, the lawyer said that he found that they had only been issued with regards the breach of the peace, with no mention of the harassment and threatening of the policewoman to be found. Azzopardi also alleged that the police had attempted to initiate separate proceedings for each of the two events – a course of action that would make it harder to prove the allegations of harassment, which require more than one instance to stand up in court and which meant that witnesses would have to testify in two separate cases.

The charges also did not include the aggravating factor of committing a crime which he was in duty bound to prevent.

“It’s as if the Police force has decided who they were siding with,” Azzopardi said, adding that his client was at her wits’ end because of her treatment by the force, of which she is also a part.

Magistrate Peralta ordered that PC Borg be arraigned under arrest for the next hearing on the 29th April.