Transcripts of what the PN media said were telephone conversations on the night of the incident indicate that Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia spoke to his driver, Paul Sheehan, not long after the latter shot at a car.
If the contents of the transcripts released by the PN prove to be authentic – no recordings of the actual telephone conversations were released – they contradict what an official government statement issued late that same night had said, that Mr Sheehan had fired two warning shots in the air.
The PN media said the transcripts showed that Dr Mallia, Acting Police Commissioner Ray Zammit and the Office of the Prime Minister were immediately aware that the shots fired by Mr Sheehan had hit a car.
I produced the weapon and fired twice... not at him though...
According to the transcripts as reported on Net TV last night, a number of telephone calls were made between 9pm, when the incident happened on November 19, and 11pm. The PN media said the voices of Dr Mallia, Mr Sheehan, Mr Zammit and Kurt Farrugia, head of government communications, could be heard.
According to the transcripts, Mr Sheehan is heard informing both Mr Zammit and Dr Mallia about what happened including the fact that he had fired two shots. “I produced the weapon and fired twice... not at him though..,” Mr Sheehan reportedly told Mr Zammit in a call at 9.15pm.
In a call one minute later, Dr Mallia was heard asking where was the car hit, according to the published transcripts.
At 9.30pm, Police Superintendent Alexandra Mamo, who was on site, called Mr Zammit informing him that the bullets had hit the car driven by a Scotsman. Mr Zammit ordered that the scene of crime be preserved. “Make sure you touch nothing and let’s have an inquiry,” the transcripts say he told the superintendent.
Make sure you touch nothing and let’s have an inquiry
The transcripts as released by the PN media also quotes Mr Zammit asking Mr Sheehan whether the minister’s daughter was with him. Mr Sheehan replied he had already spoken to the minister. From subsequent exchanges it transpires that Dr Mallia’s daughter was at the house of Mr Sheehan’s mother.
According to the published transcripts, at 10.36pm Mr Zammit told Mr Sheehan: “To be certain before we issue the statement, you are sure of what you told us, right? Because you could have been confused, no?”
The PN media said Mr Zammit asked Mr Sheehan: “And you fired twice in his direction?” (“U int tajtu żewġ tiri?”) and the driver replied in the affirmative.
An official statement e-mailed to Times of Malta at 11.14pm on the night of the incident spoke of a hit- and-run incident in which the minister’s car was damaged, of a person trying to attack Mr Sheehan while holding a beer bottle and of two warning shots being fired in the air by the minister’s driver.
Dr Mallia had told a press conference he had only got to know that the shots had hit the car the day after the incident.
According to Net TV, Mr Sheehan first called the control room at police headquarters, in Floriana at 9.01pm.
In that same call, according to the published transcripts, Mr Sheehan was heard saying “here, in the [Tal-Qroqq] tunnel... I have already shot in his direction” (“hawn taħt il-mini... sparajt fuqu diġa”).
Mr Sheehan also asked to speak to Dr Mallia, who happened to be at police headquarters attending a social function.
When contacted, Mr Farrugia said he was not yet in a position to comment because he did not have access to the transcripts. An inquiry was in progress and it had the power to look into them if it so wished, he said.