The police could not have waited for the robbers to continue digging their tunnel to nab them in the act as that would have been classified as entrapment, which is illegal, a police inspector told Times of Malta.

Police Inspector Sandro Camilleri, a lawyer by profession, said the law did not give the police the facility to wait for the crime to be committed as that can only be done in very specific cases, such as controlled drug deliveries, which nevertheless still require a magistrate’s warrant.

Dr Camilleri was replying to Times of Malta questions on why the police did not allow the would-be robbers to finish digging the tunnel and catch them red-handed as they made their way into the bank’s vault.

Emphasising that he was not involved in this case and knew none of the details, on a point of law he said the police had to be careful how it conducted its investigations.

“We cannot entrap people. We have to be very careful. There is a lot of jurisprudence about this.

“If we are informed about something which is being planned, we have to act and we cannot wait for that plan to come to fruition. The police are there to prevent a crime from happening,” he said.

He added: “Had the police not acted on the information they had received and just set up a constant watch inside the bank’s vault, the court would have thrown out the case and declared it as entrapment.”

This could also have civil repercussions as the alleged robbers would then be able to file a civil suit for damages.

As much as a warden cannot hide behind a tree, waiting for someone to park to then issue a contravention of illegal parking, the police cannot wait for someone to commit a crime to act on it, he said.

“If we could do these things, we would solve many more cases,” he joked.