The Irish police dropped the case against the son of former Maltese ambassador to Ireland Richard Muscat after they did not find sufficient evidence against him.
After examining the file with the proceedings of the case, the public prosecutor ruled that no charges should be brought against 35-year-old Massimo Muscat.
In a statement issued yesterday night, Richard Muscat said that his family was happy and felt “liberated” with the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The decision by the public prosecutor was sent to the Police Superintendent at Donnybrook in Dublin.
“This decision has absolved my son of any wrongdoing and closed positively months of trouble and strong pressure on my son, on myself personally and on the family. We are satisfied that this unfair and unfortunate experience has been clarified,” Muscat said in his statement.
An Irish student, 20-year-old Christina Leech-Cleary, had claimed that Massimo Muscat had sexually assaulted her late last year. The case was revealed in public by an Irish newspaper after the student had decided to speak out because the police had still not taken any actions following her claims.
The attention that the Irish and Maltese media had given to the Muscat case led the former Voice of the Mediterranean chief to tender his resignation as Maltese ambassador to Ireland on 17 August 2007. Maltese Foreign Affairs Minister Michael Frendo accepted Muscat’s resignation the following day.
Muscat kept news of his son’s arrest and police interrogation last October a closely guarded secret, not even informing Frendo when he came to be reappointed ambassador earlier in August.