Perjury charges could spell resignation for GRTU president

GRTU president and businessman Paul Abela could face perjury charges under a new police investigation into whether he lied under oath when he said he witnessed former director-general Vince Farrugia being assaulted by Sandro Chetcuti.

Abela’s future as GRTU president now stands in the balance: if charges are filed against him, he stands to lose his position since the small enterprise chamber’s statute bars council members from retaining their posts when they face criminal charges.

Chetcuti, today the president of the Malta Developers’ Association, was charged with attempted murder following a brawl with Vince Farrugia inside his GRTU office back in 2010. The altercation was the result of an SMS that Chetcuti texted erroneously, when the message was intended to be sent to then Opposition leader Joseph Muscat.

The charges were later downgraded to grievous bodily harm, and a court found Chetcuti guilty of slightly injuring Farrugia.

Attorney General Peter Grech’s change of heart about the gravity of the original charge of attempted murder came about soon after a number of SMSs were downloaded from Farrugia’s mobile phone, which were presented in court in the compilation of evidence on the insistence of both the prosecution and the defence.

The SMSes confirmed that Farrugia was suborning witnesses into upholding a misleading version of events of the incident. Eventually, one witness recanted in court, revealing that the claims of other key witnesses, like Paul Abela and Philip Fenech, were untrue.

On giving sentence in September 2013, the court also ordered that the Commissioner of Police investigates Farrugia – who still retains his government appointment as the representative of Maltese employers on the European Economic and Social Committee, the EU’s consultative body on civil society – for perjury.

Chetcuti later instituted a police challenge against the Commissioner of Police for failing to file perjury charges against Farrugia and a number of witnesses.

In its decision, the court presided by Magistrate Aaron Bugeja noted that at the time, former Commissioner of Police Peter Paul Zammit had decided not to prosecute Farrugia for perjury after consulting with the Attorney General and his superiors, although it is not clear who his superiors were.

The court concluded that the Commissioner of Police should take the necessary steps to prosecute all those who had lied under oath together with Farrugia, but the court fell short of naming all those who could face perjury charges. 

Magistrate Bugeja decried that many witnesses in the trumped up charges against Chetcuti had been coached to effectively give false testimony.

In particular, the court made specific reference to an SMS that Farrugia had sent to Paul Abela reminding him to repeat that Sandro Chetcuti used the word: “Noqtlok” (I will kill you). Farrugia also asked Abela to say that Chetcuti made his “kill you” threat as Chetcuti was hitting Farrugia. Paul Abela, who did as he was asked, was not even in the room, it transpired later.

Farrugia sent SMSes to various witnesses, including to GRTU employee Sylvia Gauci, who was told: “All you have to do on Wednesday… is to say loud and clear, that if your colleagues were not there he would have killed me. I’m in no doubt he would have stopped only after he battered me. You should keep a beast in prison [Bestja trid thalliha Kordin]”.

It was Sylvia Gauci herself who later admitted in court that she had been coerced to make up her side of the story, and that she had lied under oath.

The court repeated the observations of Judge Edwina Grima, in the criminal case against Chetcuti, who had pointed out the inconsistencies in the testimony of Vincent Farrugia and Paul Abela.

Other testimonies also raised doubts about the veracity of other witnesses, such as that of GRTU official Philip Fenech, who is a friend of Farrugia, and who stated that he had heard shouting at the GRTU offices, when Sylvia Gauci had testified that Philip Fenech was not even in the GRTU offices.

Farrugia was insistent in his electronic messaging to Philip Fenech, to whom he said in an SMS – ostensibly referring to Chetcuti – “the pig must roast”.

Farrugia also sent other messages to prominent journalists and bloggers, many of whom had taken Farrugia’s side of the story in the police prosecution of Sandro Chetcuti.