Former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit. Photo: DOIFormer police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit said he feared the Enemalta oil bribery investigation files could go missing as he defended holding on to the documents in his office.
In the wake of a revelation that the files remained in his office for 15 months, Mr Zammit yesterday told Times of Malta he wanted to confirm the content, the type of investigation conducted and the direction of the probe.
“What if I tell you that I feared someone would have an interest to make that file disappear? I entered a new place and found a mess. There was this file and the [John] Dalli [snus] case file that remained in my office for a long time,” he said.
Superintendent Paul Vassallo told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday the case files were transferred to the police commissioner’s office on April 12, 2013, the same day Mr Zammit was appointed.
Mr Vassallo said the files remained there – barring a brief interlude when investigating officer Angelo Gafà was transferred and a handover was made to Inspector Jonathan Ferris – until July this year, when Mr Zammit was replaced.
Either the superintendent is lying and knows what the story is or someone supplied him with the wrong information
“I have no plausible explanation why the files spent 15 months in the police commissioner’s office,” Mr Vassallo told MPs.
But Mr Zammit was adamant he never requested the file on April 12, insisting that, on that day, he had only entered police headquarters at 5pm when all offices were closed, briefly met his predecessor, John Rizzo, and left.
He said that if anybody asked for the files to be moved to the police commissioner’s office on the day it must have been Mr Rizzo.
“Either Mr Vassallo is lying and knows what the story is or someone gave him the wrong information,” Mr Zammit said.
He insisted the retention of the official files in his office in no way hindered investigations.
“Investigations are carried out on the information and documents held by the prosecuting officer. Every officer will have his own personal investigation file and Mr Vassallo referred to this in his testimony, when he said the investigation continued,” Mr Zammit said.
The PAC is probing the findings of a damning report by the National Audit Office on Enemalta’s fuel procurement mechanism.
The line of questioning pursued by MPs has veered into a separate oil scandal involving fuel procurement that was revealed by Malta Today last year.
Police investigations have led to several former Enemalta officials being charged in court with bribery and corruption.