Editorial: Justice silenced in Nadur

Back in 2008 in the small Gozitan village of Nadur, a relative of the influential Said family – the priest Fr Michael Said – carried out a very particular intercession. When the family of a 14-year-old rape victim filed charges against the Said brothers Josef, Peter Paul and Mark Lorry, as well as Peter Paul Debono, the cleric encouraged the parents to withdraw the charges, claiming the criminal trial would further traumatise the girl.

They acquiesced, withdrawing the complaint the very next day against a payment of €7,000 from another Said relative, Reuben Said.

The prosecution pursued the charges irrespectively on an ex ufficio basis, insisting that the violence had taken place in a public place and therefore could not be extinguished by the withdrawal of the complaint.

A first court however determined that the prosecution could not satisfactorily argue that the locations of the sex crimes had been public – a private construction site, a fenced yard, a garage…. Under the Criminal Code’s medieval provisions at the time of the offence, a complaint was a legal necessity to prosecute these ‘private’ sex crimes.

Under appeal by the attorney general, the case dragged on for over two decades. And justice delayed truly became justice denied.

The timeline of testimonies indicates significant delays in the compilation of evidence, with the courts having had to examine their admissibility and whether the prosecution had a legal right to proceed despite the withdrawn complaints.

By 2016, the legislator had transposed the specific EU directive ensuring a suspect’s right to a lawyer during police interrogation. This meant that the “systemic restriction” denying legal assistance to the accused could now be invoked in their favour.

Given that their statements were released in September 2008, a time when Maltese law provided no right to legal assistance before or during police interrogations, the court had to later rule that their statements were inadmissible because of the procedural defect.

At this stage, it is hard to ignore the controversial role played by Fr Said, whose kinship with the accused appears to have spurred him to choose the omertà that would protect the family name, rather than uphold common decency and the rule of law.

It was he signed the settlement contract to formalise the agreement and presided over what he termed a “donation” to pay for psychological help for the minor. Testimony from the minor’s father specifically shows that he felt pressure from the priest and the accused’s family to drop the proceedings “not to make matters any worse”.

So crucial was the priest’s role in this imbroglio that the first court declared the charges of rape and corruption of minors extinguished due to the complaint’s withdrawal. Even though the prosecution argued the withdrawal was “vitiated” because it was made under pressure and for money, the law did not provide a specific mechanism to overturn a renunciation simply because money was involved. As the case dragged on, the victim, now an adult, formally renounced all her claims again in 2017 and 2020, with a €120,000 settlement for civil damages. The second, substantial payment and subsequent renunciation left “no doubt” about the victim’s intention to drop the charges.

Through clerical pressure and the cold arithmetic of cash settlements, what unfolded in Nadur was the active dismantling of justice. Fr Said himself engineered an outcome through his intervention, having been also made aware of this conflict of interest by another priest. That a man of the cloth chose to shield perpetrators rather than a child speaks to a cultural rot that conflates family honour with righteousness.

While it is not surprising that the priest has so far remained silent, it is disgraceful that the Gozo church and the Gozo Safeguaring Commission have not uttered a word.