Vince Farrugia opposing police challenge to investigate perjury

Lawyers for Vince Farrugia and developer Sandro Chetcuti have clashed in court over a request to allow the former GRTU director-general to testify in a case filed by the developer against the Commissioner of Police.

Farrugia filed the urgent application, asking the court to suspend challenge proceedings filed by developer Sandro Chetcuti which may result in Farrugia being charged with perjury, until Farrugia testifies.

Chetcuti had filed challenge proceedings requesting that the Commissioner of Police charge Farrugia with suborning witnesses to give false evidence, perjury and fabrication of false evidence after Chetcuti had received a suspended sentence for causing slight injury to Farrugia during an assault at the GRTU offices in 2010.

The court at the time had also ordered the Commissioner of Police to investigate Farrugia and other witnesses for perjury, noting that Farrugia had made several attempts to use his clout to engineer a trial by media and “twist the arm of justice.”

Magistrate Aaron Bugeja had been expected to give his decision today, but this date has now been set back by the latest development.

Chetcuti’s legal team, lawyers Edward Gatt and William Cuschieri, objected to the request on the grounds that Farrugia was a third party with no legal standing in this case and highlighted the fact that challenge proceedings are, by their very nature, only filed against the Commissioner of Police.

Allowing Farrugia to testify would create a dangerous precedent, argued Gatt, as the law did not cater for a third party testifying in challenge proceedings- which are normally between a citizen and the Commissioner – an argument seconded by Police Inspectors James Grech and Sandro Camilleri, who were representing the Commissioner of Police.

Farrugia’s lawyer, Stephen Tonna Lowell, however alleged that these objections were intended to prevent the court from hearing all the necessary evidence to reach the right conclusion. "The court must hear the whole truth and not part of it, or the version of just one side of a story. The real victims in this case was and will remain Mr Farrugia," said the lawyer.
 
Gatt hit back, saying that Farrugia was no longer the victim, as he had been in the criminal case against Chetcuti, because the police were now being asked to prosecute Farrugia for perjury and manipulation of evidence.

The Magistrate announced that he will deliver a decree on the matter from chambers.