On July 5, 2023, Jomic Calleja Maatouk was found guilty of importing explosives and trying to buy lethal doses of radioactive Polonium-210, ricin and fentanyl. He forfeited his €51,000 bail bond, was ordered to pay €2,827 in court expenses and was sentenced to five years jail. Instead, Maatouk walked free, after appealing the sentence, nominally on bail and obliged to sign the bail book daily.
On August 16, barely six weeks after he was handed his hefty prison sentence, Maatouk escaped. Malta’s police force didn’t notice. It would take another two weeks before Maatouk appeared on Europol’s list of most wanted fugitives.
Maatouk isn’t your common criminal. The court described him as a “lethal weapon” who was ready “to open the gates of hell upon whoever he deemed an inconvenience to be eliminated”. In considering the impact of such crimes on society, the court “recognised the need to protect the public from such a dangerous individual”.
Yet, Maatouk walked free – out on bail. Now he’s absconded. Nobody knows where he is. So much for protecting the public.
Times of Malta described the man’s release immediately after his five-year prison sentence as a “quirk” of the justice system. That’s not a quirk. It’s a weapon as deadly as the explosives Maatouk imported. It’s a poison as fatal as his Polonium-210, ricin and fentanyl.
Polonium-210 is the radioactive agent that Russian secret services used to assassinate Alexander Litvenienko. Ricin was used by the KGB to assassinate Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov. Fentanyl is an opioid 100 times stronger than morphine. These are the poisons the magistrates’ court found Maatouk guilty of trying to import.
The C4 explosive he bought is a plastic explosive similar to Semtex used by terrorist and military organisations, and used to blow up a US airliner over Lockerbie. That explosive would have reached Maatouk were it not for US law enforcement agents who intercepted the package and replaced it with a dummy. It’s only thanks to them that Maatouk didn’t use that powerful explosive here.
Based on information provided by the Americans, Maatouk was caught and prosecuted. But his conviction and a hefty sentence provided no protection. Maatouk didn’t even serve a single day in prison. He was let out on bail.
With somebody as dangerous, you’d have thought police commissioner Angelo Gafà would have assigned the best members of the force round the clock to ensure Maatouk didn’t abscond. After all, Maatouk had done it before. In 2015, while facing drug-trafficking charges, he escaped. He was arrested by the Italian police aboard a train heading from Sicily to Italy’s mainland.
Gafà was caught napping again. His police force didn’t even realise Maatouk was gone. He failed to sign the bail book for days and nobody twigged. The only reason the police realised was because the family of Maatouk’s wife, Marzia, reported her missing. She disappeared with Maatouk. She too is a convict. She was sentenced to 15 months jail for drug possession with intent but was also free.
Marzia’s family noted she’d been offline since August 16. She failed to take frantic calls to her mobile. Her brother raised the alarm on August 17 when she failed to turn up for work. Marzia’s grandmother filed a police report that she wasn’t answering her phone calls and was presumed missing.
Family members went to the Maatouks’ residence on Saturday, August 19. Nobody answered the door. Only then did the police respond. They broke in – but the house was empty except for eight dogs and a bird. The whole place was in a mess, indicating the Maatouks left in a rush.
That’s what Labour excels at – letting criminals escape justice and getting away with it- Kevin Cassar
By then, the Maatouks had been gone for a full three days. They could have reached the other end of the world. Or they could still be hiding here in Malta.
But Gafà didn’t bother to inform the public that such a dangerous criminal was at large. He didn’t bother to issue a statement. Times of Malta announced that the “lethal weapon” had gone missing. Nine days after the couple had gone offline, Gafà was still “in the process of issuing a European arrest warrant”.
This is nothing short of disgraceful. The police commissioner didn’t call a press conference to inform the nation and apologise for the serious lapse. He didn’t bother to issue a warning to the public. No images of the fugitive were circulated to help locate him. It had to be Europol to do so. No public call was made by the police to help them track Maatouk and his wife down.
And where was Minister Byron Camilleri? Where was his apology to the nation? That a man as dangerous as Maatouk goes missing while on bail with a five-year prison sentence hanging over him is shocking enough. For the minister responsible for the police not even to bother to react is deeply disturbing.
You’d expect that such a gross failure would elicit the minister’s resignation. But not even a whimper was heard from Camilleri. The least he should have done was to call an investigation, set up an inquiry. He should have demanded an urgent meeting with the police commissioner to seek answers as to what went wrong to be able to reassure the public. He should have demanded somebody take responsibility for endangering the public.
And where was Robert Abela? He should be asking Minister Camilleri what the hell is going on. Especially since the police have been here before. They let Iosif Galea travel with Joseph Muscat on holiday while he was on bail and had a European arrest warrant on his head. An inquiry held about that other major embarrassment concluded “administrative deficiencies” were to blame. Is this another administrative deficiency too? Did Gafà learn nothing from Galea’s shambles and the ensuing inquiry?
This is the contempt with which Labour treats the nation. The police force stumbles from one major blunder to another, putting the nation and Europe at risk, and nobody bothers to explain, let alone apologise, far less resign. Not the police commissioner, neither the minister, nor the prime minister.
That’s what Labour excels at – letting criminals escape justice and getting away with it.
Weeks later, Jomic and Marzia are still free.