Edward Caruana, Evarist Bartolo’s canvasser, has been acquitted of all charges – corruption, collusion, accepting money and falsification of invoices. Not because he didn’t commit those crimes but because the investigation and prosecution were so appallingly deficient that Madam Justice Edwina Grima had no choice.
This should have been an easy conviction. Caruana, a low-level government employee, constructed a huge Rabat development – six large apartments, a large three-bedroomed penthouse, six garages and an office, valued at €2 million – without taking a loan. This was a monument to the suspicious provenance of his wealth, one the police conveniently overlooked.
The recent sentence stated that Caruana was acquitted not because the court was convinced of his innocence but because the quality of evidence was “not of high level”. The judge expressed the court’s strong suspicion that Caruana was guilty: “The court declares that there are suspicions that, in all this scheming (maniġġi), there was the hand of the accused.”
Caruana, the court noted, “took the trouble to deliver payment cheques to contractors himself”, a practice both unprecedented and suspicious. The chief financial officer was bullied to allow him to hand-deliver cheques to pay for work done on public schools. “In many of those cases, there were large differences between the values on the cheques and the original tender”.
Caruana’s acquittal is a shameful demonstration of how Labour’s institutions work.
Gozitan contractor Giovann Vella accused Caruana of requesting a €30,000 bribe to authorise payments Vella was owed for work carried out on a Rabat school. Instead of investigating Caruana, the police swiftly arraigned his accuser, Vella, for slander.
In a case reminiscent of the police efficiency in Mark Camilleri’s investigation, Vella found himself before the courts within 48 hours. He endured three years of harassment before finally being acquitted. But Labour and its police had sent a powerful message to anybody else who considered reporting Caruana.
Caruana would never have been exposed hadn’t it been for Philip Rizzo, Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools CEO. Rizzo found out what Caruana was allegedly up to. He went to Bartolo demanding action. Bartolo did nothing. In desperation, Rizzo went to then prime minister Joseph Muscat who tried to buy Rizzo’s silence. So, Rizzo went to the police with his 200-page dossier of illegalities.
Bartolo, belatedly distancing himself from Labour’s obscenities, protected Caruana. He tried to persuade Rizzo not to report Caruana to the police. Bartolo even met one of the contractors, Joseph Carabott, who was accusing his canvasser.
Carabott told Rizzo, as well as chief operating officer Anthony Muscat and site supervisor Pippo Giuliano, that Caruana had demanded a three per cent cut or a truckful of tiles in order to authorise payments.
When Carabott was summoned before the minister, Carabott changed his version. He denied the allegations, claiming he’d been misunderstood. If you depend on government contracts for your livelihood and the minister calls you to his office because you’ve squealed about his canvasser, what would you do?
Why was Bartolo speaking to a potential court witness? That contractor got the message – especially since the permanent secretary was Caruana’s own brother. You have to be very brave or a complete fool to stand by your serious allegations against the minister’s canvasser and the permanent secretary’s brother, especially knowing what happened to the last contractor who squealed.
If Labour can pervert justice beyond recognition to protect a minister’s canvasser, what will it do to protect its ministers?- Kevin Cassar
When Bartolo realised Caruana’s actions could tarnish him, he acted. On September 1, 2016, Bartolo wrote to FTS chairman Emanuel Camilleri “to take all the necessary action that [sic] Mr Edward Caruana ceases to perform any works for the FTS and revert back to his previous employment”. Bartolo didn’t request an investigation. He didn’t advise suspending or sacking Caruana. He didn’t file a police report. He sought only to protect Caruana and himself.
One week later, permanent secretary Joseph Caruana wrote to the OPM about his own brother. “Agreement has been reached that Mr Edward Caruana be deployed with the Rural Development Department…. with the same terms and conditions he has enjoyed with FTS.” Caruana was not only protecting his brother from prosecution but ensuring he continued to enjoy the same perks. OPM replied that same day.
The police were determined not to prosecute Caruana. Only when the police were presented Rizzo’s detailed dossier were they compelled to act. They botched the prosecution from the start. First, they procrastinated for as long as possible. When the case came to court, they presented practically no evidence.
They didn’t present Caruana’s bank accounts. They didn’t check on how Caruana could possibly afford a €2 million development on his modest income. They didn’t provide evidence of transactions between the accused and the contractors implicated. They didn’t forensically determine who falsified those invoices. They didn’t present his phone chats. In short, they didn’t investigate him at all.
When they finally indicted Caruana the first court bizarrely concluded that Caruana couldn’t even be charged under Article 112, which carried a prison sentence, because Caruana was “an employee of a private company”. But Caruana worked at FTS, whose website listed it as a government entity. So did the official government website. The FTS chairperson and board members are appointed by the education minister. The appeals court slammed the first court sentence, making it clear that Caruana was “undoubtedly an employee within public administration”.
Although the appeals court overturned the first court’s decision, Caruana still couldn’t be found guilty. The dates of the alleged crimes on the police charge sheet were wrong. Caruana was accused of committing crimes between January 2015 and October 2016. Caruana allegedly demanded those €30,000 in August 2014. The sentence read: “this court certainly cannot find guilt because the facts occurred at a different time from that indicated in the charge sheet.”
So, Caruana’s a free man. If Labour can pervert justice beyond recognition to protect a minister’s canvasser, what will it do to protect its ministers?
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.