Police sergeant charged with €30,000 theft, resigns from force

A police sergeant has been arrested and charged in court for allegedly stealing €30,000 in cash which was confiscated during raids in connection with clandestine lotto.

PS Adrian Lia, 37 of San Gwann was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and charged today for the alleged theft which was investigated by Inpectors Fabian Fleri and Melvyn Camilleri.

Lia has reportedly resigned from the Police Force in a letter he sent to Police Commissioner John Rizzo.

At the end of his arraignment, Adrian Lia was released on bail, and ordered to deposit €1,000 deposit witrh the court registry and sign up another €5,000 as a personal guarantee.

Sources said that Lia admitted during interrogation that he had taken the money while on duty within the Vice-Sqaud unit over the past five years, and was discovered after a series of sealed envelopes with money confiscated were to be exhibted in court as evidence in cases of clandestine lotto were reported missing. 

The sergeant also allegedly told his interrogators why he took the money and what he spent it on.

Sergeant Lia had already made the headlines some years ago, after having duped the nation into believing he had behaved heroically by jumping into the ice cold sea in Sliema to save Mary Farrugia on 23 December 1997.

Lia - then a 23-year-old police constable - was awarded a gold medal for bravery after he claimed to have jumped into the sea to save 54-year-old Farrugia from Sliema as she was drowning near Qui Si Sana. The medal was subsequently withdrawn but he was still promoted to sergeant.

The same sergeant had also interrogated the late Nicholas Azzopardi who had died after sustaining serious injuries after allegedly 'jumping off' the bastions beneath the Floriana headquarters in 2008.  Adrian Lia has claimed that he had been injured in a scuffle with Azzopardi before he allegedly jumped off a wall.  There was no proof in police records of any injuries to the police sergeant.

A subsquent inquiry based many of its conclusions on the testimony of Adrian Lia.

Azzopardi died 13 days after he was arrested and was allegedly beaten up by police officers at the Floriana police headquarters on 8 April. Hours before he died on 22 April, he told his family and inquiring magistrate he had been heavily beaten up by his interrogators while under arrest. His family believe Azzopardi was attacked by an officer who flung a side kick, breaking his ribs and puncturing his lung. His death was the subject of a magisterial inquiry by Antonio Vella, and of a parallel inquiry by retired judge Albert Manchè launched by the government following the publication of the revelations made by Azzopardi in MaltaToday.  The inquiry concluded that there was no wrong doing on the part of the police.