"I don’t think the police usually raid an establishment or a residence on the grounds of someone smoking a joint, or being a known pothead"
A couple of weeks ago, I could not understand why everyone here (in Malta) was getting so excited about Cyrus Engerer, a teeny, tiny tadpole in our puddle, when the rest of the world was being rocked by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World (now defunct) phone tapping scandal.
Britain is still reeling over the deplorable issue, with more incriminating evidence being revealed day by day. Besides, Cameron’s government is under pressure due to its weak economic growth. Of course, the EU is fraught with financial concerns.
Even the US, the major capitalist country, is in crisis with its politicians playing a precarious game with regard to their country’s debt crisis. In simple terms, it does not have enough money in the kitty to pay all of its bills and if the Republicans and the Democrats don’t resolve the stalemate over raising the debt ceiling their country faces default.
While here, we are all agog over a gay couple’s shenanigans, which let loose abundant homophobic sentiment. And why? Because one of them, Cyrus Engerer, was a Nationalist Party (PN) local councillor and Sliema’s deputy mayor who defected to the Opposition.
However, one must concede that the amateur dramatics have now thrown up some serious concerns, which have been simmering under the surface for a while now. One of them being, where the lines are drawn between the police and the government, another is nepotism and yet another is manipulative leaks to the media.
In the UK , the cosiness of the ties between politicians and the news media - particularly the relationship between lawmakers and editors and executives at News International - is one of the issues Justice Leveson (Prime Minister David Cameron’s appointee to chair the panel that will investigate the phone tapping scandal) will be considering.
While here, an enquiry chaired by Judge Albert Manche (appointed by the government) - in response to a call by the Police Commissioner John Rizzo, at a press conference about two criminal cases involving Cyrus Engerer and his father Christopher - is to look into allegations of abuse of power, negligence or undue pressure. However, it does not look like the media’s connections are to come under scrutiny.
The Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said he had no confidence in Judge Manche, who also heads the Permanent Commission Against Corruption, which he said “never found a case of corruption in 12 years”. He also said that an enquiry should look into how charges issued against Cyrus Engerer were leaked to the press the same morning they were filed in court.
Cyrus’s lawyer Franco Debono is also questioning the retired judge’s appointment claiming, “I cannot understand how the minister objects to raising the retirement age for judges to 70 and then appoints a judge who has been retired for the past 10 years to lead an inquiry into such an important matter”.
He has also presented a judicial protest against the Police Commissioner and the Registrar of the Courts in connection with The Times report on the charges filed by the police against his client. The Times reported the charges against Cyrus Engerer, before he was officially notified about them.
That had followed a news report on Sunday in Malta Today about his father’s arrest. There is no doubt that both reports were due to leaks. The first probably came from the Engerers, or their friends and the second possibly from PN quarters, or the police in retaliation to the first report. Everyone is denying any involvement to the Times leak. The document surfacing in the Times newsroom must be down to magic.
The Police press conference was called after the Opposition alleged that the arrests were politically motivated. The charges against Cyrus are of keeping and/or circulating pornography and computer misuse and of vilifying Marvic Camilleri, a former employee of the (PN) and a former member of the its youth movement. He is also his former boyfriend.
Now for the ex-boyfriend, the instigator of the case against Cyrus. He had filed a police report in January 2010 after nude images of him were stolen from his computer and circulated via e-mail to his employers and friends, and he suspected this was the vindictive work of his former boyfriend, Mr Engerer.
It transpires that Cyrus was aware of those charges in June this year, before his hara-kiri gesture with regard to his political ambitions within the PN.
Mr Camilleri has reportedly forgiven his former lover, but still wants “justice to be done”. After telling the Times, together with his lawyers Andy Ellul and Vince Micallef that he was willing to drop the charges, he has since changed his mind and sacked his lawyers, because of their political affiliation (Labour). Although they had informed him that they were active members of the party.
He confirmed what Commissioner Rizzo said at the press conference, i.e. that he never formally told the police to drop the charges. After a police investigation involving the Cyber Crime Unit, the police filed charges against Mr Engerer on Monday.
It is no wonder that speculation was rife about the political implications to the charges being brought now, the leak and his father’s arrest. It was just a spliff Christopher Engerer was arrested for, on July 21, six days after his son’s defection to the Labour Party.
He “was arrested after being found in possession of marijuana following a raid by the police”, the Police Commissioner told a press conference. Adding “there is also a possibility that Christopher Engerer will be charged with trafficking rather than personal use, although this had yet to be established.”
Now that is a bit odd isn’t it? Surely, the more serious trafficking charge should have been established before the arrest. I don’t think the police usually raid an establishment or a residence on the grounds of someone smoking a joint, or being a known pothead.
He was approached by the police outside his home where he was smoking a joint. Five grams of cannabis were found in his possession. The foray at his house revealed rolling paper and a cannabis crusher, but no other drugs were found in his home, or at his bar.
After interrogating him throughout the day, the police had still not decided whether he would be charged with trafficking or possessing the drug. Commissioner Rizzo went to great lengths to try to explain the details to the press.
He insisted that the timing of the arrest had nothing to do with Cyrus Engerer’s defection to Labour and categorically denied any political motivations in the investigations. It was the result of a tip-off , on July 6, by a known informant, he said.
I would have thought the police have far more serious investigations to be getting on with. For example, the kind of people who are settling and visiting here. One of whom, Paul Ray, is to be questioned by the Norwegian police in connection with the awful butchery of innocents that took place in their country.
A report in The Times on Friday claimed that a YouTube video posted on Ray’s blog shows him at the Marsa Immigrants Open Centre accompanied by former Northern Ireland Ulster terrorist Johnny Adair and a violent German convicted neo-Nazi, Nick Greger.
“Mr Ray insisted he had no problem being associated with Mr Adair and Mr Greger, despite their violent past for which they both served prison terms,” said the report.
The British press is claiming that in his 1,500-page manifesto, Breivik (the man responsible for the massacre) stated that his mentor was Richard (the Lionhearted) Mr Ray’s pseudonym.
Mr Ray is denying any connection with Breivik.
Meanwhile, Euronews reported that any activity involving extreme right-wingers is currently causing much attention across Europe and that the Police in Stuttgart have seized rifles and ammunition from the homes of far-right extremists.
The report said that Interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has warned that Germany’s homegrown far-right scene has a dangerous fringe, potentially capable of mounting deadly attacks.
His warning came as a police union suggested that an alarm be set up for the internet allowing web users to report extremist content such as that propagated by Norway’s terror suspect.
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