Labour demands action on ID card abuse

The Labour Party has written to the Electoral Commissioner asking what steps will be taken to stamp out abuse after a woman was convicted of fraudulently obtaining an identification card.

In the letter, Labour referred to the case of Mary Magdalena Sultana who had dressed up to resemble her friend, a prison inmate, and then filed a police report to say she had lost her ID card.

When police officers asked for her ID number, Ms Sultana gave them her friend's ID number and armed with the report went to the identification card department and they issued her with another one.

The abuse did not stop there. Shortly afterwards she went to HSBC Bank and using the identification card, applied for and received an €18,600 loan in the name of the same friend who had an HSBC account.

The current system for the issuing of ID cards had loopholes that allowed abuse to occur as evident from the judgment, Labour said.

It called on Electoral Commissioner Edward Gatt to give a clear explanation of what steps were going to be taken to ensure this case did not repeat itself.