Spanish tourist admits stealing shoes

Victor Vela

Jul 27th 2008, 12:40

@Daphne Caruana Galizia.
I had more respect for you than it seems you merited,if the store manager had tried to forcefully take the shoes from her he would have broken the law , cause to stop her , search and hold her until he takes the shoes he would need to break 3 laws, 1 Illegally stopping a perosn,2 Illegal search of the persons belongings , 3 witholding of a persons freedom without authority to do so, the defence tried to have the case dropped simply because the police did not inform the spanish authorities or thier representative in Malta, ha what would they have said had the poor store manager tried to stop the girl.Some of these so called tourists come to Malta on a 1 euro flight ticket and a couple of euros in thier pockets definately no enough to sustain them for the duration of thier stay. This is happening even with Maltese youths, I know of a person who went to Barcelona and all he had was 50 euroes for the 4 day stay, where did he sleep? In an abondened house with drug addicts sleeping on the floor . He went hungry for 2 days.

Daphne Caruana Galizia

Jul 25th 2008, 02:36

What a lot of fuss about a pair of shoes, for heaven's sake. The shop manager should simply have taken them off her and let her go, instead of wasting police time and resources and burdening the law courts still further. What a big deal about nothing, really. It's unbelievable. And a newspaper report, too....

Alfred Farrugia

Jul 24th 2008, 21:39

If I am not mistaken, according to Article 36 (b) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the arresting or detaining officer should have informed the Spanish girl that she had the right to request that the Spanish consular office in Malta be informed. The onus is on the arrested or detained foreign person to make the request. The arresting officer should inform the detainee of his or her right. And the terms “without delay” are not defined in the Convention.

“36 (b): if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. ….. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this subparagraph;”

It appears that Spain is not included in the list of countries where mandatory notification is called for, so the above sub-article is the one that applies in this case.

Perhaps our police officers need a refresher course on consular notification.