Speaker asks Police to investigate hacking allegations

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Michael Frendo, said this evening that he was requesting the Police Commissioner to investigate the allegations of hacking of e-mail correspondence made earlier this month by Opposition leader Joseph Muscat.

The e-mails involved correspondence between Dr Muscat and RTK journalist Sabrina Agius.

Dr Frendo said that such allegations were undoubtedly serious.

He said that in terms of the Privileges Ordinance and Standing Orders, whenever a breach of privilege complaint was raised, the Speaker had to first conduct a preliminary investigation before ruling whether or not a prima facie breach of privilege existed. Should a prima facie case be found to exist, the case would be referred to the Privileges Committee.

In this case, Dr Frendo said, the Chair did not have the tools to investigate criminal allegations such as those made by Dr Muscat. Therefore, in line with a similar case in the House of Commons involving the alleged hacking of mobile phone conversations, the Chair was asking the Commissioner of Police to investigate Dr Muscat's allegations and report to him so that he may take his prima facie decision.

Sabrina Agius last week also wrote to the Commissioner of Police asking him to investigate the 'theft' of e-mail correspondence.