The police have confirmed that three police officers have been interrogated among the hundreds of suspects involved in the Malta Maritime Authority (MMA) bribery scandal.
According to the police Community and Media Relations Unit, two constables and a police sergeant were among the persons interrogated upon suspicion that they had acquired maritime licences illegally by paying bribes to MMA officials who are now facing criminal prosecution.
“Investigations are still in progress,” the police said in reply to questions sent by MaltaToday. “Once investigations are concluded appropriate action will be duly taken against all involved.”
The police have already charged Small Ships Administrator and MFA vice-president John Farrugia, 60, and MMA clerk Ivan Muscat, 30, accusing them of forming a society with a criminal intent through the falsification of MCAST documents, punishable by four years’ imprisonment or more. Farrugia and Muscat were also charged with accepting bribes for personal profits and with having offered advantages to those who bribed them.
According to prosecuting inspector Ian Joseph Abdilla, around 440 individuals interrogated admitted to having paid bribes to the two officials to get the mariners’ licence.
Police sources say that more suspicious licence holders are being interrogated and that the kickbacks ranged from Lm75 to around Lm250, increasing along the years since the MCAST mariners’ licence exam was introduced in 2001.
While hundreds of suspicious licence holders “from all walks of life” remain to be interrogated by investigators in what is being described by the police corps’ highest echelons as “the biggest corruption case ever” to be exposed, MMA chairman Marc Bonello has declared that all the names of mariners that will be confirmed by the police to have bought their licences against kickbacks to at least two authority officials will be “immediately struck off the register in one fell swoop”.
Meanwhile the maritime authority said last Monday it was informed by the police that the investigation on these allegations has been completed and, contrary to what the Labour MP Joe Mizzi alleged in Parliament, it did not result that the shredded papers pertained to nautical licences.
“In the light of these findings, the Malta Maritime Authority now invites the Hon. Mizzi to publicly declare the evidence upon which he was basing the allegations he made in Parliament on this matter,” the authority said in a statement. “The Authority hopes that the Hon. Mizzi will not have to wait for Parliament to reconvene in September for him to make this evidence public.”


www.maltatoday.com.mt/ 2007/06/24/top_story.html