Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina said on Tuesday that he intends to take action, in due time, against a senior police officer who handed footage to a Labour Party journalist who then manipulated it to come up with what were trumped up charges against him.

The case involved an incident which had seen Aquilina end up in the middle of a number of cars which were being escorted by the police. Aquilina had at the time been driving to parliament. The cars being escorted by the police did not carry any passengers. The incident happened on December 13 Road in Marsa in June 2019.

Aquilina, who was speaking in parliament, recalled that the Labour media had gone so far as to accuse him of having tried to kill or seriously injure police officers, driving recklessly, jumping a red light, corrupting a police officer and abuse of parliamentary privilege.

But a court threw out the case last Wednesday, acquitting him of all charges. The court observed that even though it had been edited, the footage still showed that Aquilina’s manner of driving was what one would expect of any prudent driven, and no laws or regulations were broken.

The court expressed incredulity that the case had even been prosecuted.  

He had no doubt, Aquilina said, that this case was made up as an attempt to gag him after he had raised questions, a few days earlier, about former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar as well as remarks he made about former chief of staff Keith Schembri and others.

The most corrupt officer in the police force had acquired the footage and handed it to Karl Stagno Navarra and, Aquilina said, he would take action against the officer in due time because what had happened was unacceptable to any person who could end up in a similar situation.

He knew how this matter had unfolded within the senior echelons of the police force and was sure that those in the lower ranks had nothing to do with this abuse.  

This, Aquilina said, had not been a prosecution, but persecution.  

Now that the court had handed down a clear verdict, who would apologise for the way the police were used for a story to be invented against a public officer? Who would apologise for having acted in a way which ridiculed the police? Who would apologise to his family, faced with the claims that he had attempted to kill or injure a policemen?

Aquilina said that another more recent attempt at intimidation by Labour’s One News was the way how, this week, a crew had followed him in a car while on his way to Valletta. Media had a right to ask questions to politicians, he said, but this amounted to stalking.

Aquilina thanked those who had helped him or supported him, including the Speaker, Opposition leader Bernard Grech, former Opposition leader Adrian Delia, MPs on the PN benches and the members of his family. He said he would always stand against injustice and would not be intimidated.