A seemingly innocuous parliamentary sitting earlier this week took on new life when justice minister Jonathan Attard dusted off a decades-old letter from Malta’s former attorney general slamming the authorities of the day for letting a convicted drug dealer off the hook.

Attard was winding up a discussion on proposed reforms to Malta’s drug laws when, rebutting accusations that the government was looking to treat drug traffickers with kid gloves, he brought up the long-forgotten case of Francesco de Assis Queiroz, reading from the attorney general’s furiously-worded letter.

Describing himself as “most surprised” to learn of the decision to grant the pardon "notwithstanding my negative advice", attorney general Anthony Borg Barthet told prisons director Louis Cilia that the move would benefit “a merchant of death who has shown no contrition”.

“We have now lost all opportunity” to find the Maltese counterpart assisting in the drug deal, who “will now be let off scot free”, Borg Barthet concluded.

Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet's 1994 letter.

But who was Queiroz?

The name of Queiroz evokes pangs of nostalgia for many who will remember him as one of the household names that defined Malta’s political landscape in the mid-1990s.

But younger followers were puzzled. Who was Queiroz and what was the attorney general talking about all those years back?

The case harks back to distant 1994, a pre-internet age when Britpop was in full swing, South Africa was ending apartheid by naming Nelson Mandela its first black president, and Friends was premiering in the US on its way to becoming the world’s most popular sitcom.

Closer to home, Malta was rocked by the news in late September that the government had secretly decided to grant Queiroz, a convicted drug trafficker, a presidential pardon, allowing him to return to his home in Brazil.

Queiroz had been caught by customs officials carrying just over three kilogrammes of cocaine in a false-bottomed suitcase while stepping off a flight from Zurich in July 1991.

This marked one of the largest drug busts in Malta’s history to date, with the drugs holding a market value of between Lm500,000 and Lm1 million (roughly €1.1m to €2.3m).

A brief trial in 1993 found that Queiroz had been paid $10,000 to bring the drugs to Malta and hand them over to an Italian man.

A Times of Malta report on Queiroz's trial from 26 October 1993.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay a Lm50,000 (€116,000) fine.

But just a year later, Queiroz was off the hook, on a plane back to Brazil with his fine wiped off, thanks to presidential pardon granted on the recommendation of justice minister Joe Fenech in late September 1994.

Queiroz, who had served just three years out of his 12 year prison sentence, was released without the blessing of the police, who were reportedly unaware of the pardon, or the attorney general.

Anthony Borg Barthet speaking to Times of Malta in 2014. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Fury and public condemnation

The news caused outrage.

With the global war on drugs in full swing, the Maltese public had little sympathy for drug traffickers. And the news came off the back of a horrific drug-related double murder just weeks earlier, in which a Mosta man killed two men after a five-day cocaine binge.

The development also came at a particularly delicate political juncture, with prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami finding himself in hot water after he was found guilty of political discrimination by an employment commission. The commission’s ruling had prompted him to offer his resignation, an offer that President Ugo Mifsud Bonnici quickly dismissed.

And prison authorities were hardly covering themselves in glory, after three inmates snuck out of prison after popping out to the prison yard to “stretch their legs”, setting off a nationwide manhunt just weeks earlier.

So the news that a convicted drug dealer was secretly being granted clemency captured the public’s imagination, drawing widespread condemnation from the public at large.

Queiroz was back home in Brazil by mid-November.

Why was Queiroz pardoned?

This question lies at the heart of the controversy.

In a public relations blitz after the news emerged, Fenech said that Queiroz had first asked for a pardon in March 1994, but his request was turned down.

When Queiroz returned with a second request for amnesty in June, this time citing serious ill health, Fenech relented.

Queiroz was suffering from a “highly infective” strain of Hepatitis B, Fenech argued, pointing to a medical report sent to the prison authorities, leaving him with no other option to protect the safety of other prisoners.

“Any slight scuffle involving Queiroz either with other prisoners or with wardens would have led to contagion,” Fenech argued in a lengthy “exposé” sent to the Times of Malta in early November.

Releasing Queiroz and deporting him to Brazil was the “rational” solution, he insisted.

Justice minister Joe Fenech took to the Times of Malta to explain why he recommended clemency.

Besides, authorities said, Queiroz had shown himself to be an “exemplary” prisoner, never getting into trouble throughout his time in prison, and keeping him in Malta would have meant exorbitant medical expenses.

And although it would have been ideal for Queiroz to continue serving his sentence back home, Fenech said, Malta did not have a transfer of prisoners agreement with Brazil, so little could be done.

Money must have changed hands: Sant

The opposition, led by then-Labour leader Alfred Sant, was having none of it, swiftly filing an (unsuccessful) motion of no confidence in Fenech and calling for a bipartisan committee to look into the affair.

A no confidence motion against the justice minister was rejected.

Queiroz’s medical diagnosis was incomplete at best, Sant argued, and treating his disease would have been entirely manageable. The risk to other prisoners was being overblown and Queiroz had always been allowed to freely mingle with others in prison with no negative repercussions, he said.

And if the justice minister was so concerned about the state of prisons, why didn’t he take the trouble to consult with the prisons minister, Louis Galea, Sant asked. Galea had previously admitted that while he was usually consulted in similar cases, this did not happen on this occasion.

As for the medical report upon which the pardon was based? It was drawn up by Frederick Fenech, none other than the minister’s own brother, who’s medical expertise did not lie in this disease, he added.

And while Queiroz may well have been on his best behaviour while behind bars, he had also steadfastly refused to cooperate with police to provide information about who commissioned the crime, Sant argued.

Ultimately, Sant concluded, the only possible reason why the pardon could have been awarded was because money had changed hands.

No independent inquiry or bipartisan committee into the affair was ever set up, but the bribery allegations drew a blank when Fenech Adami instructed the police commissioner to investigate them.

And the allegation proved costly when Fenech won a libel case against Sant and it-Torċa over an article repeating the claim.

Fenech quietly shunted out of Cabinet

The Queiroz affair would soon be condemned to the dusty annals of history, overshadowed by an even more controversial pardon, that of Fenech Adami’s one-time bodyguard Joseph Fenech, known as Żeppi l-Ħafi.

But the incident marked the end of Joe Fenech’s political career who, despite clinging on to his post for another few months, was booted out of Cabinet in a reshuffle in the Spring of 1995, with Michael Refalo taking his place. Fenech would leave parliament altogether a year later.

And the affair is believed to have inspired a flurry of heavy-handed anti-drug laws, often leading to harsh sentences for relatively minor drug offences.  

Meanwhile, the name of Queiroz has largely become a footnote in Malta’s recent political history, revisited only, it seems, by political gurus and Cabinet ministers out to prove a point.