Cyrus Engerer’s lawyer insisted yesterday that the Police Commissioner prejudiced police investigations into “a potential criminal act” when he said that a charge sheet deposited in court was a public document.
“The police are obliged to investigate how the charge sheet referring to my client was leaked to the media in breach of the law,” Nationalist backbencher Franco Debono, who is Mr Engerer’s lawyer, said yesterday.
He said police investigations were prejudiced by the Police Commissioner this week when during a press conference on the Cyrus Engerer case he played down the significance of the leak by saying that the police charge sheet was a public document.
“I expected the police to investigate the leak and not have the Police Commissioner make such a declaration. His duty was to investigate. According to the law a public officer who leaks official documents trusted to him in confidence risks facing a one-year jail term. This is a serious matter,” Dr Debono said.
The charges against Mr Engerer appeared in The Times before he was officially notified about them. Mr Engerer is being charged with keeping and/or circulating pornography and computer misuse and with vilifying Marvic Camilleri by allegedly circulating naked pictures of him to his employers and friends.
Dr Debono insisted that the government-appointed inquiry to be led by retired Judge Albert Manche was not the right response to the prejudice his client suffered as a result of the leaked document.
The inquiry is tasked to look into a number of issues, including how the police behaved in the case concerning Cyrus Engerer and a separate one involving a drug raid on his father’s home soon after Mr Engerer defected from the Nationalist Party to join Labour.
But according to Dr Debono, the matter concerning the leak may range from a simple administrative shortcoming to a potential criminal act and time is of essence in such situations.
“I trust Judge Manche but the minister was incorrect on this course of action. I cannot understand how the minister objects to raising the retirement age for judges to 70 and then appoints a judge who has been retired for the past 10 years to lead an inquiry into such an important matter. This inquiry is not the right remedy for the prejudice suffered by my client.”
According to Dr Debono, the prejudice suffered by his client because of the undue publicity in the media was possibly all the more serious because in this case the court could have ordered a ban on the names given the circumstances that developed.
On Thursday Dr Debono filed a judicial protest against the Police Commissioner, the director general of the Law Courts and the director of the Criminal Courts on the leaked charge sheet.
The solution to such a problem, Dr Debono said, was to have full-time inquiring magistrates like they did in Italy.
“As things stand today a magisterial inquiry can only be held if the alleged crime carries a jail term of three years or more. The case of Mr Engerer’s leaked charge sheet does not qualify and so it is up to the police to investigate. Now that the Police Commissioner has prejudged the police’s position, I do not know what will happen. This is why the government should move ahead on a proposal to have inquiring magistrates.”
Despite Mr Engerer’s defection to the Labour Party, Dr Debono insisted this was a case like all others for him.
“Cyrus was my client and there is no reason for me to stop defending him. I am tackling this case like all others from a purely legal basis in the interest of my client,” Dr Debono said.