The man who allegedly styled himself on the legend of Sicilian mafia boss Toto Riina also bragged about planning meticulously three heists and giving advice on a fourth with a young police constable, a court heard yesterday.

The star witness said Dr Gatt would always discuss his role after the crimes were carried out and expressed his dismay when they failed.

The young officer, PC Mario Portelli said he decided to spill the beans, despite a direct threat on his life and that of his mother and son by Dr Gatt, when the former police inspector and now lawyer started telling him about things he was planning to do, turning him into an accomplice.

Dr Gatt had told him that in the successful hold-up of the Balzan HSBC Bank branch, in which robbers made off with almost €1.1 million on November 30, 2007, he had advised them to leave some hair at the scene of the crime to send investigators on a wrong track.

For this advice, PC Portelli said, he was given a “cheque of 10” which he then went to cash at the same Balzan branch and in the process running into Assistant Police Commissioner Pierre Calleja and another officer who were investigating the robbery.

Dr Gatt claimed the more prominent role of planner in respect to other heists, according to PC Portelli.

After a second heist on the HSBC headquarters in Qormi, which was foiled by two police officers, Dr Gatt had met the young policeman in a café looking as “if he had lost a family member”.

The lawyer complained he could have become a millionaire if they had pulled off the heist, which he had been planning for “five months” and for which he had obtained “inside information” on how to get to the main vault. He even complained about the missed publicity, saying had the heist been successful it would have featured on Euronews.

In a more sinister turn, PC Portelli said Dr Gatt was so furious at the two officers who foiled the plan he wanted to pay them back, along with another officer who had searched a friend of fugitive Fabio Psaila at the potato shed in Marsa in an unrelated investigation.

An unsuccessful hold-up in Santa Venera was another occasion for frustration, according to PC Portelli, who said Dr Gatt complained he was working with idiots who failed to follow his instructions on how to open the security van carrying the cash.

The heist, which looked like it came out of a movie plot, ended in disaster, when the robbers failed to pry open the door of a security van carrying some €2.8 million in cash.

Five robbers managed to corner a security van in the middle of a Santa Venera road in broad daylight and tried to break into it with a bulldozer. But rather than smash the backdoor open, the bulldozer only managed to flatten the metalwork, making it even more difficult to open the door.

According to the same witness, Dr Gatt bragged about masterminding the failed hold-up of jeweller Michael Mizzi earlier this month in front of his home in Attard.

This latest job, PC Portelli said, was motivated by revenge. He told the court Dr Gatt had told him that during his time as inspector at the Rabat police station he had helped find a suitcase loaded with money which Mr Mizzi had lost. The former inspector expected a reward for this and resolved to pay Mr Mizzi back when nothing came his way.

Following the failed HSBC headquarters heist in which Darren Debono, It-Topo, who is charged with his complicity in the crime, was allegedly shot in the jaw, Dr Gatt asked medical doctor John Zammit Montebello for help.

Dr Zammit Montebello testified he had received a phone call from Dr Gatt who asked to speak to him and the two met at a pharmacy in Birkirkara. There, Dr Gatt told him he had a client who was injured and needed to be treated confidentially and Dr Gatt passed on the doctor’s mobile number to this person who later turned out to be Mr Debono.

Dr Zammit Montebello said he had met Mr Debono in Balzan and realised the injury had to be x-rayed. He recommended the Da Vinci Hospital where Mr Debono, together with two other men, went to do the x-ray.

The following day, he met Mr Debono, who was with Vincent Muscat, a co-accused, at his clinic where the police then arrived and arrested all of them.

Following the incident, he was approached by Dr Gatt at the Old Smugglers Pub in Balzan prior to testifying in the case against Mr Debono and Mr Muscat and told not to mention his involvement in the case.

The doctor said he did not mention Dr Gatt in his first statement and did not see the relevance of mentioning him in court and, in fact, did not. Furthermore, he was not asked any questions in court and so did not say anything.