Former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami yesterday said he had no intention of apologising to three dismissed policemen, as transcripts emerged of phone conversations that took place in 2000 between certain officers and robbery suspects.

“There will definitely be no apology from me,” Dr Fenech Adami told The Sunday Times when asked to react to the policemen’s calls for him to say sorry and for the Police Commissioner to resign.

The policemen – Michael Buttigieg, David Gatt and Ivan Portelli – were dismissed from the force nine years ago and charged in court over their alleged involvement with criminal activity.

Last week, the court found that their dismissal was null and void because they had not been informed about the ongoing procedures against them by the Public Service Commission.

In an interview with The Times yesterday, the three men denied any wrongdoing and said they were considering suing for damages.

However, Dr Fenech Adami said: “I acted in terms of the office I was holding. The fact the court has ruled in their favour on a technical issue doesn’t change my view of what was done then.”

This point has also been highlighted by the Justice Ministry which noted that the judgment was “strictly procedural”.

A ministry spokesman had said it was interesting to note that when the Police Commissioner had exhibited the tapes and transcripts of the telephone interceptions during the court proceedings, two of the officers had opposed the presentation of those documents.

“This is, of course, hardly an indication they had nothing to hide and it is all the more strange given that the officers had always maintained they could not understand why they had been (dismissed) from the force.”

The transcripts had been removed from court records after the court upheld an application on the grounds that a warrant was not exhibited. Testifying in court, Mr Rizzo had said the phone calls were recorded when the police were investigating a hold-up.

Sources told The Sunday Times, Mr Rizzo had inadvertently stumbled upon the officers’ involvement while police were tapping telephone conversations of suspects in the €2.33 million (Lm1 million) heist on the Group 4 security company in 2000.

A copy of the transcripts of the tapped conversations, seen by this newspaper, show there was ongoing contact between certain officers and suspects.

In one conversation, the suspect tells an officer he would be popping by “with my present, and the present of X (a criminal’s nickname is mentioned)”. The officer replies, “of course”, and tells the suspect that his brother could contact him whenever he wants.

The suspect assures the officer nobody, except his brother, knew about him, adding that God forbid the officer betrayed him.

Another conversation opens with the officer asking the suspect if he is “all right”, urging him not to call him on that particular phone number. However, they continue talking and the suspect speaks about the previous day.

When the heist had taken place in 2000 there had been a big police raid followed by a car chase.

In the conversation, the suspect speaks about “some 14 cars”, while the officer replies, “hadn’t I told you before”.

In a separate telephone exchange, a suspect is asking to meet an officer because “I have a friend and I would like us to do him a favour”. The officer asks the suspect if he had changed his phone number and urges him not to say anything on that particular line.

When contacted, one of the policemen said that when Police Commissioner John Rizzo had been asked in court if there had been any tapped conversations, he had denied this.

“I had been the one to point out to the judge that there had been such conversations. Mr Rizzo had never asked why this call was made. If (he suspected) there was something wrong, he had an obligation to ask me why the person had called me and whether I knew him,” he said.

Instead, the policeman recalled how he had received a call from the depot while he was going abroad, telling him Mr Rizzo, then assistant commissioner, had wanted to speak to him. He was later told he should resign.

“An inspector will obviously have contact with people who sometimes fall foul of the law. If I worked with an insurance company I would come into contact with those who make claims. The content of the conversation is totally innocent.”

(More items from The Sunday Times in the News section.)