EMAILGATE

Government email accounts belonging to Alfred Sant, George Vella and Anglu Farrugia allegedly targeted by MITTS personnel

Three top senior Labour parliamentarians, including former Labour leader Dr Alfred Sant, may have had their electronic messages accessed by employees of the Malta Information Technology & Training Services, MaltaToday can reveal.
Apart from Sant, the two other ‘hacked’ parliamentarians are former veteran parliamentarian George Vella, and present deputy leader Anglu Farrugia.
Senior Labour party officials told MaltaToday that MITT employees, who had authorisation to access passwords of government email accounts, had targeted the three senior politicians for the last two years.
Labour officials told MaltaToday that they do not exclude a political motive in the matter. If the allegation is proved to be correct, this may have serious repercussions on government.
Yesterday the speaker of the House Louis Galea shot down a motion presented by the Opposition to discuss the matter urgently.
Earlier in the week Austin Gatt’s ministry stated that “any comment prior to the conclusion of the said investigation is uncalled for and possibly prejudicial to the investigation”.

The ministry had said it will “comment fully once the police assure the Ministry that comments made will not prejudice the investigation” but ended its statement adding: “The only statement that needs be made at this time is that the allegations being carried in the Labour Party newspapers are a ‘pack of lies’.
Police are said to be investigating a number of employees at MITTS who, besides ‘accessing’ electronic emails of government employees, are alleged to have got into Inland Revenue records and attempted to access banking records.
Acting Opposition leader Charles Mangion told MaltaToday that he did not exclude a political motivation behind the ‘illegal’ access to the email accounts.
He then added that he personally refused to use government email accounts.
“When MITTS wanted to install their email account they asked me for my server. You can now understand why I refused to accede to their request.”

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.