Revisiting the Vince Farrugia SMSes

The salient feature of the criminal charges brought against construction developer Sandro Chetcuti, 40, who today is a vice-president of the Malta Developers Association, is the emergence of facts showing his accusers tried to foment an intensive character-assassination campaign against him.

Chetcuti's defence has been successful in getting the Attorney General to drop the initial charges of attempted murder and downgrade the charges to causing grievous bodily harm on Vince Farrguia when he assaulted the GRTU director-general at the GRTU offices on 11 March, 2010.

But the SMS text messages fished out from the mobile phones of officials of the GRTU and presented as evidence in court, point towards a concerted effort at manipulating testimonies of potential witnesses and even create doubt as to the evidence of medical professionals.

The SMSes have conjured up a nasty pretext to the bad blood between GRTU officials and Chetcuti, a construction developer whom the GRTU have accused as having "basked under a tax amnesty" by the Maltese government for undeclared monies and benefiting from "the greatest money laundering exercise of hundreds of millions of tax-evaded monies".

In SMSes dated 10 March - the eve of the assault - Vince Farrugia tells GRTU vice-president Philip Fenech to "besmirch" Chetcuti with government ministers and MPs "so nobody trusts him... he's a leper. We must hit him from all angles, no mercy".

More SMSes showed the irritation that Vince Farrugia, formerly a Nationalist Party candidate for the European elections, had with Chetcuti's obvious Labour leanings: "We must not make a hero for Labour out of him. We must first expose him as cheap, a traitor, untrustworthy, a bum, money-stinks guy... just phone everyone you know that we caught him red-handed spying for Joseph. Kill. He'll die when he's shunned."

Consultant's examination contradicted

In the aftermath of the assault, concern existed over the degree of injury suffered by Farrugia and whether this would be enough to confirm the gravity of the assault.

But evidence by consultant radiologist Anthony Samuel was put in doubt by court experts who suggested the medical results of X-rays of Vince Farrugia's ribs could have been exaggerated.

Samuel, revealed to have once dated Farrugia's daughter Marie-Claire Farrugia, herself a doctor at Mater Dei Hospital, is believed have employed a detailed bone scan that allowed past fractures to be rendered, and which were not visible in the X-rays taken by Dr Konrad Borg at the emergency department that showed no fractures on Farrugia.

Twice was Samuel's evidence challenged: first by court expert Dr Mario Scerri, who insisted that Farrugia had not suffered any fractures, but was only slightly injured and that a scar on Farrugia's eyebrow was not serious; then by court-appointed radiologist Malcolm Crockford, whose report said fractures shown in the bone scan were not the result of the injuries suffered in the assault by Chetcuti.

In one SMS sent a few days after the 11 March assault, Farrugia's daughter Marie-Claire told him that she had "just asked Anthony Samuel consultant radiologist to do special scan on ribs. Do not worry there is no difference in treatment, but it helps court case".

Another SMS from Vince Farrugia to his son Jan-Karl, who acts as his lawyer in the ongoing compilation of evidence, showed his intent at getting a convincing record of his alleged serious injuries: "I think we left the certificates issue up to them too much. You should get advice from Konrad and Anthony Samuel tonight. If their testimony is soft they will make us and the police out to be donkeys. Someone must say that any blow could have killed me."

Manipulating testimonies

The concern that Farrugia should be portrayed as the victim of an attempted murder seems to have pervaded the SMS conversations between the GRTU officials: nowhere was this more evident than last week's court sitting in which a former employee recanted her testimony to the police and the courts - admitting she had lied under oath.

Sylvia Gauci told the court on Monday when she testified for the second time, that she "did not want to lie to the court", and said that before going to the police station the employees at GRTU were gathered and instructed on what they should tell police officers under interrogation.

She alleged that GRTU president Paul Abela and vice-president Philip Fenech were also in the meeting during which employees were instructed on what they should tell police officers - both officials have refused to comment on this allegation.

Gauci confirmed an SMS presented in court which shows she was instructed by Vince Farrugia on 19 March 2010 to tell police that Chetcuti wanted to "kill" him during the assault:

"Re Wednesday, when you came in you saw him looking vicious and ready to butt my head with his. Your eyes' message which I read was 'watch it' and your eyes showed terror. That's what I'll say. And as he hit me you heard him say repeatedly 'noqtlok, noqtlok' (I'll kill you...) That's the truth. I wake up in the night hearing those words in his hoarse voice laud [sic] in my eyes. We must all hammer this point."

Gauci told the court: "I saw Vince Farrugia on the floor... and Sandro Chetcuti was at the back [of the boardroom]. I didn't see him hitting Vince" - confirming that she had not witnessed the assault itself.

Gauci's unexpected revelation in court suggests how concerned Farrugia was to drive this message through: a previous SMS shows him telling his son Jan-Karl to have him testify before the other staff, apparently because they were "mixing up things especially when he [Sandro Chetcuti] said noqtlok noqtlok [I'll kill you]."

The SMS read:

"Jan I'm thinking it's better that I set the ball rolling u nixhed l-ewwel jien ghax (let me testify first because) I'm worried the others are mixing up and they are not saying that he was screaming at me 'noqtlok, noqtlok as he was hitting me. And can't believe they did not hear him' what do you think? Talk to Kris u fil-kaz talk to Prosecution to call me first."

Character-assassination

The SMSes also suggested an intensive attempt at tarnishing the reputation of Sandro Chetcuti after the assault, with Vince Farrugia taking a central role and name-dropping potential people who would oblige - such as Malta Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

In an SMS to Philip Fenech, Farrugia asks him to check whether Chetcuti was already in custody at Corradino Correctional Facility so that he can pass on the news to another GRTU official, Mario Debono, to pass on to Caruana Galizia:

"If he did not, tell Mario to pass on to Daphne. We must watch moves on a day by day. The pig must roast!"

Other SMSes suggest that an opinion piece by the Bondiplus presenter Lou Bondì in the Sunday Times was circulated to Philip Fenech before it was published in order to be vetted. "Noel and Herman [Grech, Sunday Times deputy editor] showed us the piece referring to Lou Bondì's Sunday Times article. Noel and Herman showed me their piece and our lawyers vetted them. Better like this. Hope DCG MA TAFFIGIEX [Hope Daphne Caruana Galizia doesn't mess it up]."

Caruana Galizia had been eager to point out the obvious links between Sandro Chetcuti and Labour (the developer was a member of the party's business forum) on her personal blog at the time of the assault, but this week's evidence in court proved incontrovertible enough for her to spit back at Farrugia:

"I can't get over the mess the GRTU's Vince Farrugia has made over what should have been a straightforward assault case... why in God's name did Farrugia try to engineer and coordinate the testimony of witnesses and go wild with all those text messages and irresponsible statements?"

Suitably for readers of her blog, was a nugget she served about Farrugia's "major role in bringing Alfred Sant to power in 1996" when he led the crusade for the removal of VAT that swung retailers towards Labour - and a timely reminder that friendship is a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.