A military officer is accusing the army’s top brass of stopping him from attending the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy because of “trumped-up accusations”.

A judicial protest filed yesterday by Gunner Rudy Emanuel Catania revealed that the Prime Minister’s wife, Michelle Muscat, had been acting as a mediator in disputes involving army officers in recent months.

Gnr Catania said he asked for a meeting with Ms Muscat because his request to seek redress through the proper channels had either been refused or not followed up on three consecutive occasions.

It was then that he “followed the example set by other AFM members involved in a dispute with the top brass or wanting to contest their decision and asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister’s wife”.

Gnr Catania said the two-hour long meeting was held last Monday at the Prime Minister’s official residence, Villa Francia, in Lija. Though Ms Muscat did her utmost to reconcile the two sides, her efforts were hindered by the “intransigence” and “abusive language” of the top two army officers present towards the aggrieved party, the protest said.

Gnr Catania said he asked for a meeting with Ms Muscat

Gnr Catania said that at the end of the meeting AFM commander Jeffrey Curmi ordered him to report to his office, where he would be served with a “series of new charges”. When he turned up at the army headquarters in Luqa at 10am yesterday, he was notified by deputy commander Mark Mallia that no charges had been issued in view of the judicial protest filed a few minutes earlier.

The officer complained in his judicial protest that his request to go to Sandhurst had been unfairly turned down on medical grounds, in spite of the fact that he had passed a check-up performed at the AFM medical branch.

When, last Monday, he presented the medical certificate issued by Warrant Officer 1 Patrick Barbara to substantiate his claim, the deputy commander ac-cused him of stealing an army document and said he would be facing charges, Gnr Catania said.

Chain of command ‘dysfunctional’

Seeking redress through the Prime Minister’s wife rather than going through the proper channels was symptomatic of an army with a dysfunctional chain of command, according to a military expert.

“This is the result of a series of controversial promotions made in the aftermath of the last general election, which eroded the trust enjoyed by the top brass,” the expert, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister justified Ms Muscat’s involvement saying it was in line with her “political mission”.

He said that, as was the case with her predecessor, hundreds of people asked to meet Ms Muscat on a regular basis. In the case of Gnr Catania, both parties had accepted her role as a mediator but she would have no further involvement because the case would now be decided by a court.