The European Commission is investigating a Maltese employee who was found guilty by a Belgian court of an anti-Semitic assault.
In 2018, Maltese EU official Stefan Grech, 51, was convicted of inciting hatred towards people of Jewish faith and for assault aggravated by racial hatred, among others.
Last month, an appeal court confirmed a three-year suspended sentence for Grech for beating an Italian woman during an “anti-Semitic rant” outside the Brussels headquarters.
The court also ordered him to pay for his victim’s legal and court expenses.
The incident happened in July 2015 when Grech assaulted a senior official of the EU, who is not Jewish, with a metal plaque of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, striking her in the face after he was allegedly heard praising fascist policies on Jews.
The victim also claimed Grech went on to wrap his hands around her throat, strangling her and that he was heard praising Hitler, saying “he should have exterminated all the Jews”.
In 2018, Grech was found guilty of stirring up and inciting racial and religious hatred in public and of physical aggression and bodily damage, motivated by reasons of racial or religious hatred.
The appeal court overturned Grech’s conviction of inciting racial and religious hatred but upheld the conviction on the physical assault performed as a hate crime.
Contacted for comment, the EU Commission confirmed that Grech is still an employee of the Brussels executive.
It said it is aware of the case and has opened an internal investigation after the event.
The investigation was suspended pending the outcome of the Belgian court but was due to resume after the court’s decision and the Christmas holidays.
“The Commission has a zero-tolerance policy for any form of hate speech or religious hatred, racism and xenophobia, including anti-semitism,” a spokesperson said.
“Our internal rules impose on all of our staff to behave with integrity and forbid any form of hate speech.”
The incident happened in a quarrel during which Grech, who happens to be the brother of Nationalist MP Claudio Grech, was reportedly intoxicated. Back then, he said the incident was being “blown out of proportion”.
This is not Grech’s first brush with the law.
In 2002, he was convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography.
He was handed a suspended sentence after the court heard he had been under psychiatric care long before the incident.