Nikki Dimech’s inhaler ‘handed to escorting officer’

A police officer who was in charge of the lock-up where ousted Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech was kept under arrest said yesterday that he gave Mr Dimech’s inhaler to his escorting officer.

Sitting in the dock and nervously toying with rosary beads, Mr Dimech is pleading not guilty to bribery by allegedly asking a former contracts manager for commission before he was awarded the job. He is also denying reviling, threatening or insulting a police officer.

Testifying, police sergeant Francis Rogers told the court that, on the day of Mr Dimech’s arrest, he was stationed inside the area where persons under arrest are kept in cells.

The officer said he placed Mr Dimech in a cell where the door was made up of bars, unlike the other cells where the doors were made of a single piece of metal with a hatch.

When asked why he had done this, the officer said he used his discretion and made the decision purely based on the fact that Mr Dimech was a mayor.

Furthermore, on a request by Mr Dimech he had called a friend of the mayor’s and asked him to bring an inhaler to the police depot. Eventually, it was brought by his girlfriend.

After an hour or so, when Mr Dimech was taken upstairs to be interrogated again, the sergeant handed the inhaler to the escorting policeman in case the mayor needed it during interrogation.

Last August, the police had categorically denied a claim by Mr Dimech that he only agreed to sign a confession under duress because he was denied his asthma inhaler.

Another witness, Althea Borg, an assistant principal at the council, said that from the time former contracts manager Stephen Buhagiar was hired in October until the end of his probation in March, his position was never discussed at council meetings, except on one occasion.

The witness recalled how, before a council meeting, she had received a phone call from Mr Dimech who asked her to tell deputy mayor Johanna Gonzi to chair the meeting as he was going to be late, and to bring up the issue of Mr Buhagiar’s employment as it was nearing the end of his probationary period.

Also taking the witness stand, the general secretary of the Nationalist Party, Paul Borg Olivier, said he had been contacted by Mr Buhagiar who asked to speak to him about being sacked from his job.

In their meeting, the two men spoke almost exclusively about the termination and Dr Borg Olivier advised him to go to the local councils department if he felt aggrieved by the way it had been handled administratively.

At one point Mr Buhagiar told him that Mr Dimech wanted to “deprive him of his money”, to which Dr Borg Olivier replied that he ought to go to the police if he had any allegations to make.

The case continues.