A mayor allowing his daughter to use the internet on his council laptop constituted misuse of public property, Police Inspector Angelo Gafa` insisted in court yesterday.
He was making the case for the prosecution against Charles Saliba, 55, mayor of Żebbuġ, Gozo, who has been charged with misappropriation for allowing his teenage daughter to access the social network site Facebook when he took his council laptop at home.
The case, first reported by The Times, raised eyebrows, not least among fellow mayors who called for “flexibility and common sense” to prevail. In fact, in response to a number of queries by mayors who use laptops bought from council funds, the Local Government Director General issued a memo to all councils, putting their minds at rest that laptops were meant to be used outside council premises.
However, the police insisted yesterday that the use of the laptop by a third party, as happened in this case, amounted to misappropriation under the law. The article of the law quoted says: “Whosoever misapplies, converting to his own benefit or to the benefit of any other person, anything which has been entrusted or delivered to him under a title which implies an obligation to return such thing or to make use thereof for a specific purpose, shall be liable, on conviction, to imprisonment for a term from three to 18 months.”
Mr Saliba’s lawyer, Charles Galea, insisted the case was unfounded and lacked the basic legal requirements for charges of misappropriation and embezzlement to be issued.
He even took the unconventional step of exempting the prosecution from bringing any witnesses to testify, saying he would argue the case on “purely legal” terms.
Dr Galea said the defence was not contesting the fact that Mr Saliba allowed his daughter to use the council laptop or that he used it to access his personal internet banking. What he insisted on was the fact that this could not be construed as misappropriation.
Magistrate Edwina Grima, who presided over the first hearing of the case in Gozo, said it was “too much of a borderline case” and told the prosecution to produce its witnesses anyway.
She appointed a court expert to analyse the contents of the laptop.
Mr Gafà told the court the police started investigating the case when the Parliamentary Secretariat for Public Dialogue, Chris Said forwarded a letter received from Żebbuġ Labour councillor Joseph Camilleri alleging a number of irregularities committed by the mayor and other Nationalist Party councillors.
Mr Saliba has resigned from the PN but remained on the council as independent mayor, a post he has occupied since 2004. In his resignation letter to the PN, Mr Saliba explained he wanted to be in a better position to defend his innocence without prejudicing the party in any way.