A man is accusing two police officers of wrongly arresting and charging him simply because the person who filed the complaint against him was former Labour MEP Joseph Cuschieri.

Karl Baldacchino, 30, wrote to the Police Board – the legal body tasked with investigating such complaints – last month after he was cleared of the charges in a district sitting on July 1.

He had been charged with abusing a telecoms network and disobeying police orders after he sent a couple of seemingly innocuous text messages to the former MEP in July last year.

In his report to the board, Mr Baldacchino said his problems started during the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Balluta on July 28 of last year.

I don’t know what happened, who’s right or who’s wrong, but the fact is the police decided to take this to court, not me

A minor scuffle broke out on the fringes of the feast and the police intervened. Mr Baldacchino was not part of the scuffle but he got into the mix because he felt the police where being too tough with one of the young people involved.

At this point, Mr Baldacchino told the board, he saw the MEP tell one of the police officers “I don’t want him here” and the man was dragged away.

Sometime later, both Mr Baldacchino and the young man were arrested at the band club and held for two hours before being released.

Two days later, on a Sunday, Mr Baldacchino said a friend of Mr Cuschieri approached him and offered him a drink.

“I felt this was strange, I was not close to this person, but then he started telling me how he was with Joseph Cuschieri the whole night and that he never heard him give the police any instructions.”

He interpreted this as coming from Mr Cuschieri and this is when the SMS exchange took place.

It read: “Mela stħajt tiġi, tinsiex tifraħ b’missieri meta taraħ.” (Were you ashamed of coming yourself, don’t forget to greet my father when you see him). Mr Cuschieri and the father are friends.

Mr Cuschieri replied: “Andek [sic] bzonn xi ħaga minn għandi? (Do you need something from me?).

And finally Mr Baldacchino’s response: “Xi tridni jkolli bzonn minn għand il-Malta Ship Building? (What can I possibly need from the Malta Ship Building?).

According to the police records, shortly after this exchange, Mr Cuschieri filed a report asking the police to tell Mr Baldacchino to leave him alone.

The police tried contacting him from the Sliema station but could not get through.

Eventually, two officers were dispatched but, when they found Mr Baldacchino, he refused to go with them, insisting they had arrested him once for nothing, and he would not allow them to do so a second time.

Eventually, the officers told him to go with them to the Sliema police station and, once there, he was searched – Mr Baldacchino claims it was a strip search – and interrogated.

He was warned not to contact the MEP and told that action would be taken against him in court. But after he left the station, he called Mr Cuschieri and accused him of turning police officers against him.

At this point, Mr Cuschieri filed another police report claiming Mr Baldacchino had made defamatory claims in his regard and he was called in for questioning again.

He was asked why he had contacted the MEP again after he was specifically told not to.

But Mr Baldacchino insisted that was his business and pointed out that he had made no claims in public but simply told the MEP what “I heard him say” with his own ears on the night of the feast, when the police appeared to be taking orders from him.

Eventually, Mr Baldacchino was charged on November 26 in what is known as a district sitting – court hearings for minor offences. However, last month, he was cleared of all charges and he immediately turned to the Police Board.

Speaking to Times of Malta, Mr Cuschieri said he felt that he had been needlessly dragged into this issue.

He categorically denied having spoken to the police on the night of the feast, insisting he was very far from the action, and he had never pressured anyone.

“Basically, I received a series of odd SMS messages which I felt were intimidating on a Sunday afternoon when I was relaxing at home. I didn’t like them and I went to the police but I didn’t even ask that they take any action against him, simply that they ask him to stop.”

He stressed that he never wanted this issue to escalate to this point but it did after Mr Baldacchino resisted arrest.

“I don’t know what happened, who’s right or who’s wrong, but the fact is the police decided to take this to court, not me,” he said, adding that he was so uninterested in the court proceedings he did not testify in the case.