A young Spanish woman stopped for a drink at a Floriana bar with her boyfriend. As he waited at the table outside, she placed their order at the counter and asked for directions to the bathroom. She drew the unwelcome attention of an elderly man, Roger Galea, who called at her: “Hello pretty, how are you?”
She ignored his catcalling and proceeded to the bathroom in the basement. When she came out, she found that man waiting outside, blocking her way. He grabbed her left hand, eliciting panic in the woman. As she screamed at him to let her go, the man attempted to kiss her. She desperately tried to push past him through the narrow doorway to go back upstairs to the bar but he still managed to kiss her.
The ordeal left her so traumatised that, when asked to identify him in court, she could not bring herself to look at the man but confirmed it was the same person who molested her outside the bar toilet. “It’s the same man wearing the same red T-shirt he was wearing on Thursday”, she told the magistrate, shielding her face behind trembling hands to avoid eye contact with the man.
That was October 2021.
Nothing of the woman’s story was contested. The whole episode was recorded on CCTV and the footage exhibited in court. The magistrate watched the woman’s agitated state after being subjected to what the magistrate described as “intimidation which was degrading and offensive to the victim” and with “sexual connotations”.
Yet, on April 27, Galea was acquitted.
The old man’s actions elicit deep revulsion and disgust. But not half as much as the indignation and anger his acquittal does. Any decent citizen, of any gender, cannot but feel betrayed by the sheer injustice of the double trauma this woman suffered.
How is it possible that somebody who traumatised an innocent young woman can walk free without as much as a rap on his knuckles?
The reason is that the police charged Galea with harassment, an offence which requires the unwelcome actions to have been committed repeatedly over a period of time. Galea’s actions, repulsive and offensive as they might be, were considered a single incident and, therefore, failed to meet the legal requirements of harassment. The magistrate had no other option but to acquit the man of the charges brought by the police.
This is tantamount to a rapist being charged with serial rape and being exonerated because he only committed rape once.
The only reason the man was released is because the police brought the wrong charges. The magistrate explicitly pointed it out: “The behaviour on the part of the accused is punishable under another article of the Criminal Code, however, it is not such that it satisfies the charge proffered by the prosecution.” In short, the man did commit a crime. But it’s not the crime the police charged him with.
So, was this a mistake? Was this sheer police incompetence? Or did the fact that this episode occurred at Floriana’s Labour Party club have anything to do with it?
It’s happened before. Toni Abela was recorded commenting: “What should I do, go and report the case at the police station so you’ll get into trouble?”, when a party club president admitted to him that he had destroyed evidence of hard drugs in a Labour Party club by binning it. Abela, then deputy Labour leader, insisted he did nothing wrong when he requested a police officer not to press charges against a member of the Labour Party.
It took the police nearly seven years to issue an international arrest warrant against Ryan Schembri, Keith’s cousin, over laundering of tens of millions- Kevin Cassar
On a TV programme, TVHemm, Abela defended himself stating it was commonplace for lawyers to mediate between clients and other persons by requesting the police not to press charges. Abela had gone to the Birkirkara police station about the case and “found out that the police officer was a Labour supporter because he told me so”, despite having previously denied having spoken to the police about the case. Abela was subsequently made a judge (and president of the Association of Judges and Magistrates).
The notorious case of John Dalli’s daughters has dragged on for years. The prosecution insisted on charging Dalli’s daughters with serious money laundering together with four other accused, who the prosecution knew were too old and frail to appear in court. Three of those accused have since died and the fourth was critically ill, grinding the case to a halt.
The magistrate changed, the prosecution changed, even the AG lawyer changed. Key documents were not presented, others were still left in sealed boxes. And the magistrate, Caroline Farrugia Frendo, defended the accused: “So the AG knows nothing, the prosecution knows nothing and, meanwhile, the accused have charges hanging over their heads – this is not fair.”
What was not fair was not that Dalli’s daughters faced money-laundering charges but that those poor evangelical Christians, who were left destitute after being robbed of their life savings, watch helplessly as those who defrauded them evade justice.
When Robert Agius, one of the Maksar brothers, was caught receiving drugs in a controlled delivery set up by the police, the cocaine seized was never scientifically analysed by the police. The police failed to ‘prove’ it was an illegal drug. And Agius was acquitted. He was only fined €500 for possession of a bullet.
The Maksar brothers were represented by Robert Abela between 2012 and 2016.
Minister Anton Refalo has a national heritage artefact in his back garden but hasn’t been charged. Konrad Mizzi hasn’t been charged either. Former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar and deputy commissioner Silvio Valletta have still not been prosecuted. Neither has Ian Abdilla.
It took the police nearly seven years to issue an international arrest warrant against Ryan Schembri, Keith’s cousin, over laundering of tens of millions.
Does anybody believe these are genuine mistakes? And, if they are, what has the police commissioner done about it? Have the officers been retrained? How much longer must we watch the depressing spectacle of alleged criminals being protected while the innocent permanently harmed?