A man was yesterday charged with stalking the constable who is the star witness in the case against former police inspector David Gatt accused of masterminding serious crime.

The arraignment followed a tip off to the police that there was a plan to have the officer killed.

Romeo Bone, a friend of Fabio Psaila, the “general” in Dr Gatt’s alleged gang, was spotted outside Police Constable Mario Portelli’s house three times in one day, Police Inspector Michael Mallia told the court.

He said Mr Bone was seen speaking to someone who was well known to the police and looking directly at the house as the two in the road.

PC Portelli had said that Dr Gatt considered the 34-year-old from Floriana a member of his organisation and nicknamed him Pino Greco, after one of Mafia super boss Toto Riina’s favourite hit men.

Defence lawyer Giannella Caruana Curran said her client had been dragged to court simply because he had driven through the road PC Portelli lived in, which also happened to be a main road.

However, Mr Mallia stressed the fact that the police had acted on confidential information there was a plan to eliminate PC Portelli. Moreover, besides having been spotted repeatedly outside the officer’s house, Mr Mallia said Mr Bone had also been seen near a farmhouse used by PC Portelli and his family.

Mr Bone pleaded not guilty to threatening to use violence, relapsing and breaching the conditions of a previous release.

Magistrate Silvio Meli denied him bail.

PC Portelli is the principal witness on whom the police have built their case against Dr Gatt and Mr Psaila, who both stand charged with being accomplices in the botched heist of the HSBC headquarters.

Dr Gatt, who had been dismissed from the police force on suspicions that he was close to criminals, is also charged with planning or helping to organise hold-ups, including the failed attempt to break into a security van carrying an estimated €2.8 million in cash in Qormi last January and the hold-up on the HSBC Balzan branch, in which robbers made off with almost €1.1 million on November 30, 2007.

The damning testimony led to the lawyer being charged after PC Portelli, with whom he had been close friends for six years, testified how Dr Gatt would boast about the hold-ups he had allegedly planned. The witness also said Dr Gatt had once threatened to assassinate former President Eddie Fenech Adami.

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