Updated 4.55pm with social policy ministry's reaction

A former Labour canvasser, accused over his role in the social benefits racket has claimed he knows false medical certificates had “mysteriously” disappeared from certain files.

He also says requests to divulge “sensitive” details were pushed aside.

Roger Agius, one of the men currently facing prosecution alongside doctor and former PL MP Silvio Grixti, is now claiming that he had “lost all faith” in the police. 

Agius, who served as the official driver to junior minister Andy Ellul, is one of five people accused of having perpetuated a massive, years-long fraud that saw people being falsely classified as disabled to be granted monthly benefit payments.

The claims were made in a scathing reply to a request presented in court by the same officer who months ago had waved aside Agius’s offer to lead investigators to a public building in Valletta housing “traces” of the racket. 

Now the officer, on behalf of the corps, is seeking permission from the magistrate presiding over criminal case against the five co-accused, to speak to Agius who might help in possible further investigations. 

Agius said he had been trying to divulge “sensitive, confidential and most serious details” for months and before his name was outed, his lawyers had even written to the Attorney General seeking her intervention to ensure that he was heard on oath. 

The lawyers told the AG about their “Maltese client” who was fearing for his personal safety. The client wanted to tell all he knew about the social benefits fraud and the criminal web masterminded by a public official who, to date, still enjoyed protection from the relative authorities.

The police were so intent on protecting the politicians and public officials behind this racket that they refused to request a magisterial inquiry into “one of the greatest scandals involving fraud of public funds in the last decades”. 

Not only was information about Agius’s police interrogations leaked to the relative authorities within hours, but a person close to the Prime Minister had passed on a verbal and written message.

That message was for Agius to drop his personal lawyer so that he could be assigned a female lawyer by “Castille” and that would spare him criminal charges over the alleged racket.

Police sick leave abuse

Agius, who had first flagged his wish to blow the whistle on this racket back in November, had also told his interrogating officer that he had information about another racket concerning sick leave abuse by certain members of the police corps. 

But after being told that he would be contacted by another police unit, months lapsed, nothing materialised and the state of impunity persisted. No action was taken against anyone.

Then one day in April, a superintendent from another unit sent for Agius. But the summons was triggered by a media report. 

The superintendent assured Agius twice over that no one within the corps had spoken to her about his request to divulg+

e information about the abuse. 

He had now lost his trust in the corps, claimed Agius in his reply filed before Magistrate Rachel Montebello. 

Even his request to the Whistleblower Unit at the Office of the Prime Minister had proved in vain.

When he finally got a meeting in April, the unit re-directed his request to the police. 

'Votes for Labour'

Meanwhile, Agius went public with his insider knowledge of the social benefits racket, naming Marc Calleja - a person of trust at the Social Policy Ministry - as the mastermind who fixed the composition of the medical boards in such manner as to ensure that applicants got the severe disability benefits.

Since 2019, over €10 million worth of public funds had been fraudulently forked out, claimed Agius. 

The public officer behind the racket once told Agius “if [applicants] take longer than three minutes before the board, spit at me.” 

The most important thing was to get “votes for Labour,” the same officer said, reassuring Agius that “as long as the minister is [in office] we’ll never have trouble.” 

The person named by Agius had since never sued for libel, the court was told. 

Moreover, the police sought to protect politicians, including the Social Policy Minister and the Prime Minister, to such an extent that rather than seize all beneficiaries’ files, they had asked the ministry to forward files. 

And the files which ultimately made it to the investigators did not relate to applicants from the ninth and tenth political districts, namely those contested by the minister, claimed Agius. 

The case continues next week. 

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta signed the reply. 

'An absolute lie' - Social Policy Ministry

In a statement, the Social Policy Ministry denounced Agius's claims as an absolute lie, insisting it was impossible to delete or remove any files without any trace.

The ministry said Agius was finding it difficult to explain his involvement in the racket and said he had still not refunded the €43,398 that he had obtained illicitly between June 2016 and November 2023.

The ministry stressed that it has always cooperated with the police and urged the court to take note of the way Agius was acting out of line.