For the second time this year the Police Commissioner has requested the Attorney General to reopen the 2008 magisterial inquiry into the death of a man who died in police custody after fresh allegations resurfaced in the past weeks.
At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that exhuming the body will make anyone any wiser
AG Peter Grech confirmed Police Commissioner John Rizzo had last week asked for the inquiry to be referred back to Magistrate Anthony Vella to “examine whether persistent allegations about the alleged doctoring of CCTV footage are justified”.
“I think this is the reasonable thing to do in such circumstances,” Dr Grech told The Sunday Times when contacted.
This decision comes just two months after Magistrate Vella, who was asked to reopen the inquiry into Nicholas Azzopardi’s death last March, concluded his investigation, which failed to unearth any evidence of wrongdoing.
The 2008 inquiry had concluded that if all the evidence submitted by the police were discarded, all the other evidence – together with the documents exhibited and the facts – corroborated the police’s version of the incident.
Magistrate Vella once again established that Mr Azzopardi was never assaulted by police and that the wounds he sustained were compatible with a fall from height, not the result of any blows.
He was also unable to give credence to the family’s claims of an intimate relationship between Mr Azzopardi’s wife Claudette and disgraced ex-police officer Adrian Lia.
Mr Azzopardi died after falling off a bastion wall while in police custody facing allegations he had abused his seven-year-old daughter, though his family have again come forward questioning gaps in evidence and omissions in CCTV footage.
The family have appointed a team of professionals and lawyers to dig deeper into Mr Azzopardi’s death and the painstaking conclusions of four years’ work was being released by Malta Today.
These professionals, who the family wish to protect, have highlighted discrepancies in the testimony of witnesses and claimed the CCTV footage had been tampered with.
In the light of this latest information, Dr Grech said the inquiry had been referred back to the inquiring magistrate to “grant an opportunity to those making allegations, whether directly or by innuendo, to the effect that the CCTV footage was manipulated, to explain the basis of their allegations to the inquiring magistrate”.
The family had always contested Magistrate Vella re-examining the case, insisting any further investigation had to be completely independent to be of any value.
However, Dr Grech said that at this stage there was “no objective reason which justifies a departure” from the usual procedure.
Dr Grech said the latest allegations cast a shadow on the whole inquiry, which had taken a “tremendous amount of work”, which was why it was important they should at least be explained.
Did the AG feel the body of Mr Azzopardi should be exhumed to make a reappraisal of the inquiry results in the light of the new allegations that cast doubt on forensic conclusions?
“At this stage there is nothing to suggest that exhuming the body will make anyone any wiser,” Dr Grech said.