Updated | New police control room recordings: Mallia spoke to Sheehan

[LISTEN] Sheehan calls to police control room [FULL]

Between Sunday and Monday 8 December, the PN's media house released a total of six recordings all pertaining to the phone calls Sheehan made to the police control unit on the night of Wednesday 19 November.

On Friday evening, Net TV released a separate telephone conversation between Acting Police Commissioner Ray Zammit and Sheehan in the form of an abridged, paraphrased re-enactment. The actual recording was not released except for one segment in which Acting Police Commissioner Ray Zammit is heard talking.

During this conversation between Zammit and Sheehan, OPM spokesman Kurt Farrugia was on a separate line with Zammit. An actual recording of this telephone call, published by MaltaToday and Times of Malta on Sunday morning, revealed that Zammit told Farrugia that Sheehan “fired two shots…warning shots”. The ‘warning shots’ description was added by Zammit.

The first five recordings feature Sheehan in telephone contact with the police’s control room, mostly asking for assistance, giving directions to the location and asking to speak to the minister.

But perhaps the most shocking of these calls was when Sheehan can be heard firing two shots at the car that was speeding away. At the same time, he was requesting the assistance of the Rapid Intervention Unit. During the first phone call requesting assistance, Sheehan tells an officer that Manuel Mallia was with home. But in the phone calls that follow, Sheehan repeatedly asks the control room to put him through to the minister, who at the time was attending a function at the Police headquarters with Ray Zammit.

While on the phone with the control room, Sheehan can be heard several times saying that he shot at Stephen Smith. In another call, while Smith was being arrested by RIU officials, Sheehan can be heard telling Smith “thank God I didn’t shoot you or I would have emptied my gun into you”.

Although there are a number of voices in the background, it is understood that Smith was speaking to Sheehan in Maltese. In fact, Sheehan tells Smith in Maltese language “you know what you did”.

It is understood that Smith, a Scotsman, is married to a Maltese woman and has been living on the island between 12 to 15 years. It is also understood that Smith holds a Maltese ID card.

In one of the telephone calls, Sheehan is also heard asking someone to “start the car because it has bullets”.

Reports by both MaltaToday and Times of Malta have revealed tampering of evidence: the removal of bullet casings from the scene of crime; the deletion of extracts from a police report detailing Smith’s arrest and how he had been found with high levels of alcohol in his system; an attempt to confiscate footage from eyewitnesses who saw Sheehan firing the shots.

A Police Inspector, whose sister is Sheehan’s partner, is currently out on forced leave. A police sergeant was charged with the tampering of Smith’s arrest report.