Police probe 'abduction report' at shopping complex

Rumours about a foreign girl supposedly being abducted from the Pavi shopping complex outside Qormi left a co-owner dumbstruck, worried that it could have "untold implications".

The rumours were apparently so persistent that they even led the police to look into them.

Two senior police officers called on Paul Gauci at his office at Pavi on Saturday, one of the busiest days at the huge outlet.

They informed Mr Gauci that the Police Commissioner wanted to know whether it was true that a baby girl of Russian origin had been abducted from the complex. They even described the infant as having a shaved head, adding that according to the information in their possession she was spirited out of the outlet.

Mr Gauci, who co-owns the shopping complex together with his brother-in-law Victor Grech, deemed the story "incredible".

"You seriously think that a mother will have her daughter abducted from here and there would not have been an instant panic? You think she would not have told us? You think she would not have gone to the nearest police station," Mr Gauci asked the officers.

Mr Gauci said that since the opening of Pavi they had "the nastiest of rumours circulating but this is the worst of all". People, he said, were reacting with nothing more to go by except a rumour. "Somebody has a nasty sense of humor... or just wants to cause mischief."

Could it be a case of envy?

Mr Gauci does not think so, arguing that Pavi is not the only successful business in Malta. "I think it's just that somebody dreams up what he thinks can happen in a big place like ours - without having the least idea of the intricate security in place - and starts a rumour spinning.

This one is malicious. People have been following the case of Madeleine McCann, that heartbreaking story out of Portugal, and they immediately believe something like that has happened here. Some people may be quite willing to believe anything but the truth," he said.

Pavi covers an area of 16,000 square metres.