The managing director of Virtù Ferries is claiming that his rights were violated when he was stopped from importing a small amount of alcohol from Sicily for a party he planned to hold.

Francis Portelli said that even though he had sent an e-mail to Albert Scerri at the Customs Department asking for permission to import the alcohol and was told to go ahead, he was eventually stopped from bringing the alcohol into the country and had the items confiscated.

He insisted that according to article 28 of the Treaty of Europe he was not obliged to ask for any permission but did so because this was not the first time he had experienced problems at Customs.

He had complained various times to the department even insisting that guidelines about bringing alcohol to Malta would be issued to the public, but nothing had been done about it.

On returning to Malta on November 11 with the alcohol he had purchased, he was interrogated for an hour by, at one point, seven officials led by William Grech. Mr Grech told Mr Portelli he had no permission to import the alcohol and refused to verify the facts as given by Mr Portelli. The alcohol was then confiscated by Mr Grech.

Mr Portelli said this was just one in a series of events whereby a public officer failed to live up to the standards one expected from such a person.

After writing to the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance about the incident the day after, Mr Portelli said he had received a reply a few hours later informing him to collect the alcohol from Customs. On doing so, he was told that in order to be able to get his alcohol back he would have to hand over the receipt Mr Grech had given him. Mr Portelli refused to surrender the receipt, which was his copy, and so the alcohol remained at Customs.

Lawyers Adrian Mallia and Ron Galea Cavallazzi signed the protest.