Claim: The police did not investigate PN MP Stephen Spiteri after allegations that he issued false medical certificates emerged.

Verdict: Court records show that the police decided not to investigate the case after discussing it with the Attorney General’s office, saying that they could not identify any criminal action.

A series of Facebook posts by former Labour MP Silvio Grixti over the past weeks pointed to the police’s failure to investigate PN MP Stephen Spiteri over accusations that he had issued false medical certificates in the past.

In the first of these posts, Grixti asks “Why did the police never investigate when, in the recent past, there were media reports about the abuse of such certificates? It’s as though all was forgiven. What do you think, Chris Fearne?”, addressing his question to Health Minister Chris Fearne.

In a later post, Grixti asks “How can a case that was never investigated be considered a closed case?”, after Spiteri had described the matter as a “closed case”, once again arguing that he had been targeted.

This led to some confusion over whether the police had actually investigated the case before dismissing it or if no investigation into the issue had taken place in the first case.

The case harks back to an allegation first made by Lovin Malta in 2017 that Spiteri was issuing medical certificates from a pharmacy in Kalkara, where he was the resident doctor, against a €5 fee.

Spiteri had denied all allegations of wrongdoing, arguing that he was being targeted for “cruel reasons”. A subsequent investigation by the medical council was stopped in its infancy when a court ruled that the investigation breached Spiteri’s right to a fair hearing.

Grixti, who faces similar accusations for his role in the benefits racket, brought the issue back into the limelight in recent weeks through his posts, arguing that while he is undergoing investigations, Spiteri got let off the hook for a similar offence.

Was the case investigated after all?

The constitutional case between Spiteri and the medical sheds some light on this.

The case records reveal that after the matter came to the police’s attention, the police commissioner wrote to the medical council informing it that the matter was an administrative issue, not a criminal one.

An excerpt from the constitutional case quoting the correspondence between the police commissioner and the medical council.

The court quotes the correspondence, saying that the commissioner told the council “we have discussed matter with the AG’s office and no breaches of the criminal code could be identified and hence I am referring the case to you for any administrative/disciplinary measures deemed fit.”

While the police and AG’s reasons for reaching this conclusion are not explained, these court records confirm Grixti’s claim that the matter had not been formally investigated by the police.

Verdict

Court records citing correspondence between the police commissioner and the medical council reveal that the police stopped short of investigating the case, after deciding that no law had been broken.

The records show that the police had reached this conclusion after discussing the issue with the attorney general.

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