|
I write with reference to the feature ‘Labour spied on PN with Italian security service equipment’ published in your issue of 12 September. It carried excerpts from the forthcoming publication of a book by Dione Borg entitled ‘Liberta Mhedda’ and deals with telephone intercepting equipment, firearms and ammunition amongst others. I limit myself to the part concerning the police department of which I was in charge at the time.
Without hesitation I can assert that this part is a complete fabrication based on fictitious events showing at best, a very fertile imagination and at worst, a malicious distortion of perfectly legal and legitimate events and activities. I regret I am unable to find kinder words to describe this kind of fiction writing.
I start with, the “efficient and important interception installation at the former British barracks of Tas-Salvatur in Mqabba,” in other words the Ta Kandja station. This former listening post of the Royal Navy had been lying in a near derelict state for several years after their departure from Malta.
It attracted my attention in 1985 since I had long had the intention of establishing a residential training college for police recruits and was looking for a suitable place. I had taken Fort St Elmo for this purpose five years before and effected a lot of repairs and improvements but realised that it was too small to house forty or fifty recruits for four months at a time living in for five days a week. By the time I left the police I had just managed to convert two large rooms into dormitories, with bathrooms, for forty persons at Ta Kandja alias Tas Salvatur.
With the change of government in 1987, it became the station of the newly set up Special Assignment Group. I visited Ta Kandja barracks before taking it on behalf of the police department and several times weekly thereafter to follow the progress of the works being executed. I can categorically state that not one single piece of radio (intercepting, listening or otherwise) equipment was found, or brought to the place afterwards at any time, during my tenure of office.
I am in no position to comment on the Italian Military Mission’s “vast reconnaissance flights in the Mqabba area with the aim of establishing which antennae were operating and how they were set up.” The only remnants of radio communication were very high poles in the adjacent open fields, but without any antennae since these had been removed by the British Services prior to their vacating Ta Kandja. I can however state that there was absolutely no need for such flights for this purpose, and this for several reasons.
Personnel of the Italian Military Secret Service (SISMI) had free access to the Ta’ Kandja barracks as they had been asked to provide a better radio network to the police force than the then existing one, and this for normal police communications. There was the idea that this would be based at Ta Kandja utilising the high poles existing thereat. However, up until the time I left the police force, nothing had as yet materialised on such scale. Moreover the police had nothing to worry about since they had not delivered any radio interception equipment to the police and so they did not have to worry about “its misuse to bug telephone calls between the Nationalists.”
From a technical point of view, to say that telephone interception could be carried out without the cooperation and intervention of the telephone exchange viz Telemalta, is as nonsensical as saying that one can drive a car without having a car. Another untruth is that the police “used a telephone radio which can scan all frequencies used for communication.” Which frequencies could be scanned when no cellular radio existed at the time? If such equipment existed at the Police Department it could only intercept the police radio network or the army’s, the only two entities which had radio communication. There was never the need for such interception.
For the record I wish to mention the donations given by the Italian Service to the Police which amounted to about half a million Maltese Liri in the span of two years. My requests for such equipment were always favourably considered. These consisted in a large number of cars, motorcycles, and a complete colour photo processing laboratory so that photos of scenes of crimes would no longer be developed by civilian laboratories, the police computer system, and about fifteen pistols.
The Special Mobile Unit, which started being set up in 1983, the principal function of which was anti-terrorist as was so well shown in the 1985 hijacking when they were instrumental in saving the life of a number of the passengers, was never supplied specifically with any equipment by the Italian Service.
I may also add that up to 1987 the Special Mobile Unit was stationed at Floriana near the police garage and not at Ta Kandja. The police mostly bought their ammunition by public tender with the last consignment, during my time, being bought from Finland and consisting of a container full of small arms ammunition.
It was used in the regular shooting practice courses which all police personnel underwent from time to time. These courses were held at the shooting range at Floriana near the Police garage. There was the intention of converting an underground building at Ta Kandja as an indoor shooting range, but again this was not done in my time.
Therefore, I categorically deny, that during my time as Commissioner:
(1) any telephone intercepting equipment was donated or given to the Police Department by Libya, Italy or any other country, since there was no regulating legislation in place however much equipment would have been useful in the fight against crime;
(2) the calls of the Libyan Embassy in Malta were intercepted or that their telephone service was in any way interfered with by the police;
(3) either Prime Minister Mintoff or his successor ever instructed or ordered me to bug or intercept any telephone calls made by anybody and I never resorted to such activity;
Even if the police wanted to intercept telephone calls, whether by the Nationalists or others, they could not do so once no equipment for this existed.
Thus what Mr Dione Borg has written in the latest edition of his book is nothing more than a figment of his imagination and a dirty exercise aimed at creating doubt where no basis for such exists, thus attempting to attribute irregular and illegal activities by police functionaries, including the undersigned, when such allegations would not stand the test of the least scrutiny.
If the document mentioned, which forms the basis of this fable, as purported originated with SISMI, and if it actually exists, it is either the work of somebody wanting to justify his salary and placing in Malta, or else a very sick joke played upon the author which may earn him the title of the greatest fable writer of modern times were the allegations not so serious and defamatory.
The above is without prejudice to any libel action which may be instituted and I reserve my rights in this regard.
Lawrence Pullicino
Swieqi
|
