Residents urge Mepa to act over 'illegal' Sliema mosque

Four Sliema residents yesterday filed a judicial protest in the First Hall of the Civil Court calling upon the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to implement its own stop and enforcement order.

Graziella Decesare, Ethel Bonello, Carmelo Cassar and Philip Bonello declared in their protest they had asked Mepa to take action as there was an illegal mosque in their apartment block in Tower Road, Sliema.

They claimed that Harry Calleja, the owner of an apartment in the block, had wished to carry out developments in his property. When the other residents had refused to authorise the works, Calleja had handed over possession of the apartment to Toutoungi Mowafak, free of charge, to use it as a mosque and this in retaliation against the other residents.

In July 2001 Mepa had, following complaints by the residents, issued a stop and enforcement notice against Calleja and Mowafak on the basis that the apartment had been changed into a place of public worship without authorisation.

Calleja and Mowafak had appealed to the Mepa appeals board and ultimately to the Court of Appeal and both had confirmed the stop and enforcement notice.

However, the residents claimed that despite these decisions and correspondence sent by them, Mepa had taken no action in respect of Calleja and Mowafak. Thus, the two individuals were blatantly challenging the judgment of the Court of Appeal and were using the apartment as a mosque in clear violation of the law.

At the request of the residents, Mepa's auditor had examined the case and had found a number of irregularities on the part of Mepa officials.

The auditor concluded that the relevant file had been misplaced and that a former director of Mepa had given an explicit order not to intervene in the matter.

The auditor also found that misplacing of the enforcement file was a "very convenient way how to obstruct investigations".

The four Sliema residents declared that the conclusions reached by the auditor would have, in other countries, led to resignations but this was not the case with Mepa for the authority was still failing to fulfil its legal duties.

They added that somebody at Mepa and the police force had advised Calleja and Mowafak to utilise the apartment as their residence and to invite members of the Moslem community for prayer in order to act within the parameters of law.

However, the residents claimed that the apartment was still open to the public as a place of worship and a number of Moslems attended the mosque on a daily basis for prayer. This could be easily verified by the number of pairs of shoes that were left in the common parts of the apartment block.

Furthermore, the Moslems who attended this illegal mosque had broken open the front door of the block of flats so that they could have unlimited access to the block.

The residents concluded their protest by adding that Mepa was acting irregularly and that it now appeared that even Mepa's auditor did not wish to be involved in the case.

They called upon Mepa to fulfil its duties.

Dr Franco Vassallo signed the protest.