Azzopardi claims frame-up of tax official by civil service head and former police chief

The Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi has alleged a frame-up of a former tax official, by none other than the Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar and ex-Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit.

Azzopardi made the sensational claim in his winding-down speech on Tuesday evening, saying the alleged victim was at one point legally represented by Robert Abela, then still not a Labour MP.

The MP claimed that in 2013, a former high-ranking tax officer was forced to resign after being arrested, detained and interrogated, ostensibly for refusing to heed Cutajar’s suggestion to step down from his role.

He said that the public officer was detained in the evening, all night and into the morning. He was subjected to a humiliating strip search, "that criminals are accustomed to, but not a good man like this officer in the Tax Department,” Azzopardi claimed.

Allegedly, Mario Cutajar had sent for the official in mid-April 2013, telling him to resign quietly - but the tax official subsequently refused.

Cutajar called for him again two days later, reiterating the demand for his resignation and threatening that criminal charges will be made against him if he refuses to step down.

Azzopardi said that the offical was arrested on the basis of false criminal suspicions by being summoned twice by the fomer Commissioner of Police, Peter Paul Zammit; Azzopardi even said Zammit had told the officer that he would be offered monetary compensation if he resigns quietly.

“He continued to refuse because he had done nothing wrong, even though he was psychologically shattered."

Azzopardi said that at the time, inspector Angelo Gafà, now Police Commissioner himself, was tasked with investigating the case, acting on the instructions of Peter Paul Zammit. However, according to the MP, Gafà intervened to release the official, finding nothing to charge him with; then a few days after the incident he requested to be transferred to the Malta Secret Service.

Azzopardi also said that an assistant police commissioner in the Valletta district had received an anonymous letter illustrating these details. “He began accessing the April 2013 detention log and confirmed that this public officer had in fact been detained. He opened a file on the case and began an investigation. A few days later he was asked to pass the file to the Fraud Squad, and today we don’t know what happened to it.”

The family of the official then requested legal assistance from a lawyer during his detainment, who Azzopardi said had turned out to be Robert Abela, at the time not even a Labour MP.

“Over those days, the lawyer spoke instead to Mario Cutajar and Angelo Gafa,” he said. “This is the same Robert Abela who is Prime Minister today and says that the institutions are working.”

Azzopardi concluded by asking Robert Abela on what he intended to do with Cutajar, having known about the Principal Permanent Secretary’s action since 2013.

“Why is Robert Abela comfortable with having a Principal Permanent Secretary that was willing to order such inhumane treatment towards an honest and exemplary public official? What does Mario Cutajar know about Robert Abela? Why did Abela never request any criminal action be taken against Peter Paul Zammit and Mario Cutajar?”

Azzopardi said that Cutajar’s place was not at Castille, but at the Corradino Correctional Facility.