When Cyrus Engerer called me on my mobile on Friday, July 22, I could have easily ignored his call.

But I didn’t. I returned it.

And while returning his call, it so happened that purely by chance we bumped into each other outside Xara Palace Hotel in Mdina.

Mr Engerer told me that the previous day his father had been detained for drug possession, and that his father’s lawyer had told him to expect such behaviour from the police as a consequence of his decision to join Labour.

Anyone in my position, faced with such a serious allegation, from whoever it came, is duty bound to act. I told Mr Engerer that alleging what he had just claimed was grave and could not be taken lightly.

I was so shocked at the unfair allegation that I decided to phone the Commissioner of Police while he was there, next to me, hearing everything I was saying.

With hindsight that could well have been a mistake; not because I sought to ensure there was no political interference but because the individual I was trying to reassure was not at all interested in being reassured that Nationalist Party governments do not interfere in the work of the police.

I told Police Commissioner John Rizzo too that I was phoning in Mr Engerer’s presence.

I explained the serious concerns that had been made to me, especially the alleged statement by the lawyer of Cyrus Engerer’s father, Chris.

The Commissioner gave me the timeline of Chris Engerer drug case and how its circumstances did not support at all any allegation of political interference.

The bottom line was that a report had been filed with the police on July 6, nine days before Mr Engerer joined Labour on July 15. The police were duty bound to act on the information they had received but had to wait for a search warrant to be issued.

I passed on this explanation to Mr Engerer there and then.

While I appreciated the Commissioner’s account, I asked whether it could be given to Chris Engerer’s lawyer as well.

I made this request because the allegation appeared to have originated with this individual and I thought it important to dispel any doubts concerning interference with the police investigation with the person involved.

The Commissioner declined to do so, as was his right.

Labour leader Joseph Muscat should have learnt that only those in the wrong try to hide anything.

I never tried to hide my phone call to the Police Commissioner. I knew all along that Mr Engerer, who was with me when I made the phone call to the Commissioner, was a Labour Party member and soon to be Labour candidate.

Unlike the Labour leader I do not believe justice is only for my party’s supporters.

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. I know how the then Labour administrations used the police to terrorise the then government’s opponents.

Nationalist people of that generation took an ‘oath’ never to allow that to happen again; on anybody’s watch, their own or somebody else’s.

The Labour leader is now twisting the facts and portraying me as if I were putting pressure on the Police Commissioner to harm a Labour supporter and his father.

The facts show that I did nothing of the sort.

Faced with a serious allegation of police injustice, I did my duty.

Mr Galea Curmi is Chief of Staff at the Office of the Prime Minister.