The Police Commissioner is still trying to get to the bottom of what happened at the Isle of MTV concert when a top minister’s aide allegedly told police to arrest the security chief.

There are several conflicting versions of events

“There are several conflicting versions of events,” Peter Paul Zammit said when contacted yesterday for an update on the inquiry.

The incident took place on June 26 when Khiron Security head John Muscat and Silvio Scerri, Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia’s chief of staff, had an altercation over the accreditation of a guest attempting to enter the restricted VIP area.

When Mr Scerri could not get his way, he asked a police officer nearby to arrest Mr Muscat, an allegation Mr Scerri denies as “I’m not the type to make such statements”.

Dr Mallia has also come out in defence of his chief of staff and in an interview with The Sunday Times of Malta [see pages 10 and 11] said Mr Scerri never tried to get the security guard arrested.

“When there was this commotion, Mr Scerri was practical and got another tag to wrap around her hand to be let in. This person [John Muscat] threw the tag to the ground,” he said.

Dr Mallia added that when he asked Mr Scerri for a statement, he not only provided this but procured “six affidavits of other people who were with him, some of them who are important in this country”.

“My latest information is that this person [John Muscat] wants to apologise to the chief of staff,” Dr Mallia said.

Asked if he was really considering apologising to Mr Scerri, Mr Muscat said: “There is no reason why someone who is doing his job should have anything to apologise for.”

Mr Muscat also said the minister “seems to be misinformed” about the claim that he threw the tag on the ground.

“When I told the woman involved she could not access the structure without a valid tag she pulled out a used tag from her pocket,” he said. He explained to her that each tag had a security feature that prevented it from being reused once opened, which was why she could not close the tag around her wrist again.

“The woman was clearly embarrassed and a little agitated but remained very polite and simply said she had already been on the stand... At no time did I throw the woman’s tag on the ground,” Mr Muscat said.

Reacting to Dr Mallia’s remark that Mr Scerri had provided six affidavits from people “who are important in this country”, Mr Muscat referred to the witnesses who spoke to this newspaper last Sunday.

“Their testimony is no less important than anyone else’s in the country,” he said.

“Can we imagine what the national and international headlines would have been... had there been an incident at the MTV VIP structure in which a number of people, including those ‘who are important in the country’ would have been injured or worse? That would have been a real situation for the Police Commissioner to investigate,” he added.

When this incident cropped up, the Police Commissioner had also said he was investigating whether Mr Muscat was breaking the law by employing people as security officers without the necessary permits.

Asked about this yesterday, Mr Zammit said it seemed Mr Muscat was abusing a legal loophole by employing soldiers as stewards but using them as security guards. However, he was still going through the paperwork to establish if the system was being abused.

Reacting, Mr Muscat stressed that Khiron Security always operated in line with industry regulations, going beyond national legislation to implement internationally recommended standards.

He insisted that stewards (ushers) were distinguishable because the T-shirts they wore did not have the word ‘Security’ on the back and the passes they wore on a lanyard clearly stated they were so.

The stewards guided people to their authorised zones, while security officers carried out ID checks and responded to disorderly behaviour, among others.

“Gone are the days where the role of a security company is to provide muscular men to control ‘entry and exit’,” he said, in an indirect reference to Mr Zammit’s comment last Sunday that he was simply “responsible for security issues – entry and exit”.