National Bank of Malta | Shares ‘signed away under duress’

In early December 1973, government intervened to 'rescue' the National Bank of Malta from a run which threatened its reserves. Prime Minister Dom Mintoff's proposal to the 350 shareholders? "Hand over your shares for no compensation" (Monday, 13 December). Was the subsequent handover voluntary, or were individual shareholders pressured into complying with the prime minister's demands? This is how some of the surviving witnesses recall the experience:

George Sclivagnotis, Sliema

When the National Bank of Malta saga started to unfold, and having learned that police and bank employees were hassling shareholders to sign over their shares, I decided to make myself scarce. That evening I visited my elderly mother, who lived on her own, and found her in a very agitated state. She told me that she had received numerous phone calls demanding that I go immediately to the National Bank branch in Kingsway, Valletta.

I had no intention of going but to clam her down I agreed to go. I arrived at around 8 p.m. to find many bank employees gathered there, while the bank's directors were discussing the situation in the boardroom.

One of the employees, a very close friend of mine, came up to me sobbing, telling me "your shares are worthless, please George, sign them over and you will save our jobs. How will I support my family?" When I replied that I would not sign, the head of the Bank Employees' Union came rushing at me, shouting, gesticulating with his arms and tried to physically attack me but he was held back by some of his colleagues and bundled out of the room. On sensing such a tense and volatile situation, I quickly left the bank.

The following day, I went to an office in Valletta where a number of shareholders had gathered. There I was informed by the bank's general manager that Mr Mintoff had threatened to withdraw all parastatal funds from the National Bank Group.

His exact words were "jekk tad-Dockyard ma jieħdux il-paga nhar is-Sibt, ser jiġu d-dar u jieħdulek kollox" (if the Dockyard workers do not get their wages on Saturday, they will enter your home and take everything).

Later, there was another bank employee who happened to be one of my former team mates at Melita FC, who sought me out and badgered me to sign over my shares. When I continued to resist, he warned me with the words "ma tafx kif jistgħu jkissruk dawn?" (Don't you know how these people can ruin you?). He then invited me to his home and showed me a list of prominent businessmen and a very prominent lawyer who had already signed over their shares, and said "int iktar bravu minn dawn?" (Are you more clever than they are?).

I played the coward and signed over my shares for nil value. However, one must bear in mind the circumstances of the day and put into perspective the continued violence which reigned in Malta during Mr Mintoff's premiership.

Peter Dacoutros, Sliema

I would like to state the true facts which concerned our family on that fateful December night of 1973 when my uncle, Peter Dacoutros, was forced to sign off his shares in the National Bank of Malta.

Two policemen in uniform turned up at the door of my uncle's residence in East Street, Valletta, and rang the doorbell at 10.40 p.m. My uncle went downstairs in his pyjamas and opened the door accompanied by his two terrified spinster sisters who lived with him. The three of them were in their late 70s at the time.

One of the two policemen handed a document to my uncle and requested him to sign it. My uncle asked what the paper was all about and in return the policeman told him it was a document whereby he would be signing off his shares in the National Bank of Malta. My uncle had a quick look at the document and then told the policemen that as his brother, who happened to be my father, was a lawyer, he would consult with him immediately and the following morning he would go to the bank's head office and see to the matter.

One of the policemen told my uncle: "Jekk inti ma'tiffirmax dik il-karta issa, għada filgħodu ma jkollokx għalfejn tmur il-fabbrika għaliex ma tkunx tiegħek iżjed." (If you do not sign that document now, tomorrow morning you will have no reason to go to the factory as it will not be yours anymore).

My uncle Peter signed the document. Yes, signed under duress or as we commonly say, at gunpoint!

Nobody in his right frame of mind would sign off his wealth unless he was forced to do so. I was a 22-year-old man at the time. These facts are as clear in my mind as they were on the night it happened. Yes, because these facts are the undeniable truth.

These facts I recounted in court when I was asked to give testimony on October 28, 2010. A distortion of these facts by anybody directly or indirectly involved in engineering the takeover of The National Bank of Malta would be acting like the proverbial "throwing the stone and then hiding his hand". It would be a devious mind acting out of shame and guilt for one's wrongdoing. Where there is guilt there is crime.

Yes, the takeover of The National Bank of Malta was a heinous crime, an ongoing cancerous tumour in the banking system of our Malta.

Marie Attard Montalto, Rabat

The "bully boys" who "banged on my door" took the form of policemen who woke up my whole family in the dead of night with the heavy-handed ringing of our doorbell.

They said they wanted to search the house but after telling my late husband and I to ensure that we signed over our personal and family company shares in the National Bank Group as demanded by Dom Mintoff, they left without a search. The threatening words "or else" were left unspoken, but we got the message! I also recall that during those terrible days which left a scar on Malta's banking history, our telephone calls were being monitored. Yes, we definitely felt threatened by Mr Mintoff's direct and veiled threats. Who in their right mind would have signed over their shares without compensation unless they felt threatened by moral violence and possibly also physical violence?

Peter Apap Bologna, Sliema

The saga of the National Bank of Malta has become of interest to hundreds of people like me who would have been heirs to a few shares, had the shares not been (metaphorically) hijacked at gun-point by Dear Dom! In fact both my wife Alaine (née Zammit Cutajar), and I would have inherited some shares which would have come in useful in our old age.

The current media interest is most revealing as there has clearly been a concerted effort by the politicians involved to ensure that the victims do not receive compensation.

The suggestion that the court cases should be settled so as to allow a just conclusion is sheer hypocrisy.

The documentation involved is a veritable mountain which would daunt any judge. In addition, so many people have died that, under Maltese Law, their involvement terminates on death, so heirs have to be proved to take up their cases. The government is quite aware that there will never be a judgment.

It is therefore up to the government to seek an equitable solution to compensate the victims of Mintoff's crime of extortion.

The late respected George Bonello Dupuis had promised publicly that a Nationalist government would put matters right. That never happened, and it is easy to deduce that the politicians reckoned there were few votes to be reckoned with, just the Sciclunas, the Cassar Torreggianis, and the Sant Fourniers, and they were all rich, so why worry! But the reality is that there are literally hundreds of small héritiers involved. In the case of my great uncle Alfred Bartolo Parnis alone, there must be well over a hundred cousins who would benefit.

Joanne Pace, St Julian's

Apart from the major shareholders there were also the small shareholders.

These were Maltese citizens from all walks of life, including a good number of pensioners, who saw their lifetime savings being taken away from them at the stroke of a pen. There were others, like the three Colombos sisters who had no pension and lived solely on the dividends earned from their shares in The National Bank of Malta.

Angelika Colombos died of a heart attack on the pavement of Archbishop Street, Valletta, on the morning of the takeover of the bank while Maria and Euterpe eventually died in Mount Carmel Hospital, penniless.

In 1987 we voted in a government with the slogan "Work, Justice and Liberty". I cannot comment negatively on the work and liberty part of the slogan. However, where we shareholders of The National Bank are concerned, we have been awaiting justice for over 35 years. Shame!

Former Finance Minister Lino Spiteri, Attard

The allegation was that Mr Mintoff sent bully boys to bang on shareholders' doors to frighten them into transferring their shares to the government. Not so.

The individuals who went to plead with shareholders to hand over their shares to the government were members of the bank employees' union, hugely concerned about their job.