A magistrate has been appointed to investigate abuse of power and claims of brutality by members of the police’s Rapid Intervention Unit last Saturday, caught on cameras and published by Times of Malta on Wednesday.

The injured Fabrizio Sciré.

A spokeswoman for Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia on Wednesday said that a magistrate is looking into the alleged beating of two Sicilian men by the police.

However, the spokesman did not explain why, in contrast to previous practice, the police officers involved were not suspended from their duties until the conclusions of the investigation.

Police sources told the newspaper that Magistrate Neville Camilleri, leading the inquiry, has already confiscated the footage and other evidence to shed more light on what had actually happened.

The footage aired Wednesday on timesofmalta.com shows some eight RIU police officers surrounding two men, with two particular officers clearly seen punching and striking blows at the two men without the latter appearing to offer any resistance.

In a similar case in 2007, when another police officer was caught on video kneeing a German resident in her chest, he was immediately suspended pending an inquiry.

However, this time round, Minister Michael Farrugia has so far failed to act in a similar manner.

“Depending on the outcome [of the magisterial inquiry], the necessary steps will be taken as needed,” was the only reply from his spokeswoman.

According to one of the victims, Fabrizio Sciré, a Sicilian businessman who has made Malta his home for the past three years, police officers from the mobile squad called him names and laughed at him when he asked them for help as one of his trucks parked in Żebbuġ was on fire.

He claimed that, for no apparent reason and without any provocation, he was beaten up by the police together with his son.

On Tuesday, a police spokesman confirmed that an internal investigation was under way following a report filed by the Italian businessman and his lawyers.

However, he emphasised that the police officers denied all the claims made, despite the footage showing the beatings.

Meanwhile, reports of the incident published by the Sicilian media sparked a hostile online backlash between Maltese and Sicilian users, with some accusing the Maltese of being “racists” and “ugly” while Maltese commentators called Sicilians “mafiosi” accompanied by ‘customary’ calls for all foreigners living in Malta to “go back home”.

Some Sicilian commentators went as far as to call all their followers for a “commercial war” on Malta by not allowing truckloads of Sicilian food items and other goods to be transported to Valletta every day.

“We should block the Pozzallo port,” one of the Sicilian commentator said, in direct reference to the Sicilian port hosting a daily Malta-Sicily catamaran service.