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Matthew Vella
Private Investigator Joe Zahra, 50, currently facing charges of falsifying information with respect to the award of the controversial Mater Dei tender for the supply of medical equipment, can expect to face fresh legal procedures by the Director of Contracts Joseph Spiteri and his daughter, Claudine Cassar, director of Alert Communications.
MaltaToday is reliably informed that Spiteri and Cassar, who were implicated in a private investigation commissioned by Simed International bv, the Dutch healthcare company which contested the award of the tender to Italian firm INSO Spa, will be proceeding legally against Joe Zahra, who conducted the investigation.
Zahra is accused of having falsely giving the impression of incriminating evidence, making false accusations against third persons, filing a false report, and spreading unfounded rumours. Joseph Spiteri and Claudine Cassar were two of the three people implicated in the alleged corruption, along with Bastjan Dalli, brother to Nationalist MP John Dalli.
In the evidence compiled against Joe Zahra last week, it was revealed that the investigative report had falsely implicated Cassar of having travelled to Naples, Florence and London.
Police checks on Cassar’s travel records have shown she was not in Italy on the dates mentioned in the report and this newspaper is informed that on one particular date, the 28 March 2004, Cassar was actually giving birth to her child in Malta. Since airlines do not allow pregnant women to travel in the last trimester of their pregnancy, Cassar could have not travelled anywhere by plane from January to March 2004.
Vexatious attack
Private eye Joe Zahra may have flaunted his skills in public through his position as consultant to Where’s Everybody?, where he previously formed an integral part of the Bondìplus team. In the compilation of evidence presented by Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar last week, it was revealed that Joe Zahra was not a licensed private investigator, and was charged for working as a private guard without a licence. He is currently suspended from his duties at the production house pending the current legal procedures.
Zahra has now launched a vexatious court action against MaltaToday and is suing this newspaper for libel for an article appearing last week entitled ‘New investigation into former Where’s Everybody? Consultant,’ in a bid to silence the newspaper from publishing its revelations. Zahra claims the article exposed him to ridicule.
The article concerned a report on investigations being conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department following a report lodged by a man currently undergoing legal procedures to have more access to his child, who is under the custody of his estranged wife.
MaltaToday reported that Zahra was instructed by the mother of the child to conduct a private investigation on the whereabouts of her husband when he takes out his child, currently the subject of a Family Court battle between the husband and his wife.
According to AC Michael Cassar’s testimony, Zahra’s report claimed to have documented evidence of the husband exposing his son to the company of his female friend, breaching a court decree which does not allow the son to be in the presence of any women, bar family relatives, when out with his father.
The investigative report was presented through an affidavit signed by Joe Zahra in July 2003, seen by MaltaToday, which carried the letterhead of Quadrant International Investigations. In the report, the private investigator claimed that on every Saturday, the husband was seen outdoors with his female friend and his son.
In December 2003, Zahra was asked to present the audiovisual evidence he shot, as court evidence seen by MaltaToday confirms. But claimed the pictures and the film he shot were in the process of being extracted from the “computer’s hard head [sic] which is present at the company Digitone, in Fgura.” Up until the latest court sitting, Zahra’s alleged evidence had not yet been produced. MaltaToday spoke to Digitone director Marcel Mizzi who confirmed that no computer or audiovisual equipment belonging to Zahra was being held at Digitone. Mizzi confirmed that Zahra had taken something to Digitone about a year ago, but the equipment was returned to Zahra soon after when it was clear that whatever Zahra had claimed was on the computer was not in fact there.
Denying the allegations about his son being in the presence of other women, the husband said the report damaged his chances of having more access and custody to his son, who is currently not allowed to spend overnight stays with him, whilst still standing as primary evidence preventing him from having more access to his son.
Sitting pretty
Former Minister of Finance John Dalli also released stark comments on the Joe Zahra case in The Malta Independent on Sunday last week, when he expressed his shock at the revelations on the Joe Zahra saga.
His most revealing comment was however directed at the television programme Bondiplus.
Dalli told The Malta Independent on Sunday he was shocked to realise that he sat throughout the programme with “Zahra’s client” (SIMED).
He said: “in what was supposed to be an objective impartial assessment… Was this programme transmitted before or after the concocted report was given to the Prime Minister?”
In comments given to MaltaToday by Lou Bondi two weeks ago, the TV presenter said the work done by Zahra for Bondiplus had nothing to do with his private work: “I carry full responsibility for my programmes and if MaltaToday has any questions it should ask me, as it had the chance to ask in the past without taking it.”
Bondi also denied categorically and reiterated that Bondiplus had nothing to do with Zahra’s private investigations. He replied in the negative when asked whether he had seen the report - related to INSO and the granting of the tender - and whether he knew what it contained.
matthew@newsworksltd.com
Correction:
Last week, in the article ‘New investigation into former Where’s Everybody? consultant’, the page 2 statement indicating that the most recent court sitting involving Zahra in the above-mentioned Family Court case had “occurred earlier last week.” should have read “occurred earlier this year.”
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