AD chairman served with arrest notification

The Office of the Prime Minister has asked the Police Commissioner to thoroughly investigate the case of Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Harry Vassallo who was yesterday served with copies of a court notification saying he would be detained in prison for not paying fines.

Dr Vassallo said he was informed by the police that a fine for not filing VAT returns of a company he had nothing to do with for the past 10 years had been converted into a two-year prison term last October.

He said the police served him with the "admission tickets" at 4.15 p.m., just hours after a Net TV journalist questioned him on the matter, following an unrelated press conference at noon.

Immediately after Dr Vassallo issued a statement on the matter, the OPM said it had called for a detailed investigation into the events that could have led to the "strange" way in which the police had behaved.

Dr Vassallo said he had no idea that the fines had been converted into a prison term. Five months later - and on the eve of the election - it had to be a Net TV journalist to inform him, Dr Vassallo told the press, surrounded by his family and party delegates, and stating that the "disgusting" electoral campaign had hit rock bottom.

"The trap had been hidden away for months and the file left in some drawer until it would serve the PN," he said, describing it as a "sign of a monster in panic, which has lost its sense of humanity and mercy".

Dr Vassallo said he told the police he had requested the reconsideration of a Presidential pardon he had already been denied so that the "exaggerated" fines, which amount to €13,974 (Lm6,000), would not break him and his family.

Explaining the nature of the fines, Dr Vassallo said they were imposed on him because a company he had nothing to do with for the past decade had failed to file its VAT returns. While he was working for the company, he had always paid the tax due, he insisted.

Since he was the person registered with the VAT Department, procedures were taken against him and it was he who was fined.

Dr Vassallo said he had spent many a sleepless night worrying about the matter and had not even told his wife not to alarm her.

He had often gone to court to explain that he could not present the accounts of a company he had nothing to do with any more. But as the law stands, Dr Vassallo explained, the courts had no alternative but to impose the fines.

He said he worked for the party, earning €931 (Lm400) a month, and was unable to pay the fines. "I earned nothing and collected no VAT in all the years that I was being fined thousands of euros," he said, adding that he had reached an agreement on the matter with the VAT Department last month.

Now that the matter had been made public for the benefit of the PN, Dr Vassallo said he would embark on a personal campaign so that "law enforcement would be reasonable and, where a few papers are missing, no one would be treated like a violent criminal".

The only reason why he did not do this before was because he had a personal and direct interest in the matter, he said.

Whether or not he went to prison, he would "fight until the end so that extreme and savage bureaucracy would become human".

Later in the evening, Dr Vassallo, who is suffering from shingles, serenely addressed an AD public meeting at the Waterfront Hotel in Sliema.

In a statement later, the Police Commissioner said Dr Vassallo's allegations were "totally different" from what the police reported.

Preliminary investigations, he said, indicated that a policeman informed Dr Vassallo to regularise his situation regarding the arrest warrants, issued by the courts in September.

The PN said in a statement it was not so stupid as to create such an issue on the eve of a general election. It categorically denied it was going to get involved or was ever involved in the case against Dr Vassallo, rejecting all the allegations he made against it.

It added that Dr Vassallo should realise that, as a public figure and a party leader, he was subject to public scrutiny. "Dr Vassallo was accused and found guilty of not paying a €13,974 (Lm6,000) fine and, although there was a court sentence, he did not pay the fine," the PN said.

Dr Vassallo wanted to turn his case into a political issue against the PN, which is unacceptable, it continued. "Dr Vassallo should stop spinning his case. He is trying to make political capital from his own mistake," the PN said.

Media.link, the PN's media arm, said it was informed yesterday that Dr Vassallo was fined €13,974 (Lm6,000) and that he had asked for a Presidential pardon, which was denied. It said it had asked Dr Vassallo for a comment about the case after an AD press conference at noon.

Media.link said Dr Vassallo claimed at yesterday evening's press conference that he was unaware that his unpaid fines had been converted into a prison term, even though the sentence was given by the court on September 27, 2007.

It denied any link with any police, or court action taken against Dr Vassallo and said it was not Media.link's fault that he was found guilty by the court and fined. Neither was it Media.link's fault that Dr Vassallo did not pay his fine and requested a pardon, which was not granted.