The police wanted former archbishop Giuseppe Mercieca’s home-help to admit planting a bomb outside his residence in 1984, a new book will reveal.

Details of Joyce Tabone’s ordeal are being published in the former archbishop’s memoirs, which will be released on Saturday.

The incident goes back to September 25, 1984, at the height of the Church schools dispute, when a suspicious object that looked like a bomb was found on the doorstep of the Archbishop’s residence in Mdina. Ms Tabone describes how she was arrested, kept in a cell and interrogated four times by the police. She also recounts how a cup of coffee she was offered by police contained finger nails.

She says the arrest was the worst experience of her life as the interrogating officers twisted her words and fabricated statements she had not made to make it seem like she was admitting involvement in the planting of the bomb. All along Ms Tabone protested her innocence.

Ms Tabone was eventually released when it transpired that finger prints recovered from the bomb belonged to two men.

The Sunday Times of Malta is today publishing excerpts of the incident (see pages 8-9), together with an account of Mgr Mercieca’s meeting with Dom Mintoff after thugs ransacked the Curia in Floriana.

The book was written by Charles Buttigieg, a former Curia public relations officer under Mgr Mercieca.

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