Missing links in Nicholas Azzopardi enquiries, eyewitness accounts

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Nicholas Azzopardi: TIMELINE

April 8, 2008: Nicholas Azzopardi, 38, is called into the Police Headquarters in Floriana on allegations of domestic violence filed by his estranged wife. While in police custody he is informed that he is about to be arrested on new charges involving child abuse, also brought forward by his wife. He is also informed that he has lost custody of his daughter, who would be institutionalized by court order. He is kept at the depot overnight under arrest. During the night he is briefly hospitalized for chest pains, but returned to the depot early morning.

April 9: Nicholas Azzopardi is interrogated by police sergeant Adrian Lia and PC Reuben Zammit, under supervision of Inspector Graziella Muscat, starting at 11am. What happened next has been subject of three separate enquiries: suffice it to say that he was later rushed to hospital suffering sever injuries to the chest, head and nape. The police issue a terse and highly economic statement, claiming that an unnamed detainee had injured himself while trying to escape. His brother Reno Azzopardi is told by PC Louise Chircop that his brother had "fallen out a window". Other versions (including that of Sgt Lia) suggest he had jumped over the bastion. Reno Azzopardi was also told that Nicholas only had "a few hours to live" (in fact, he would survive for 13 days).

The police internal inquiry, headed by assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar, begins at 9pm.

April 18: Nicholas Azzopardi regains consciousness in Mater Dei's ITU, and tells his brother Reno and father that he had been severely beaten by the police - referring specifically to two unnumbered officers "in blue". His family record the deathbed revelation on camera.

April 19-22: Azzopardi's condition improves considerably, and he is moved from ITU to another ward.

April 22: Nicholas Azzopardi dies, barely two hours after testifying before Magistrate Antonio Vella. His deathbed testimony was not recorded. Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar was also present for this interrogation, despite being administratively responsible for the concurrent internal police inquiry. The autopsy will later point toward thrombosis as cause of death. His family insists they had been prevented from entering Azzopardi's ward on the day he died. They also claimed to have purchased medication specifically for thrombosis, but this was taken away from them on the promise that it would be administered by hospital staff.

April 27: MaltaToday airs footage of Azzopardi's deathbed claims of police brutality and attempted murder. Home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici admits afterwards that he had been never been informed about the case by Police Commissioner John Rizzo, and only learnt about it thanks to "scant press reports".

Photo 1: An aerial view of the Police HQ, highlighting the positions of all CCTV cameras.

Photo 2: Shadow of Adrian Lia captured at 17:04:02 just moments before the incident happened.

Photo 3: Adrian Lia seen running behind the school gate at 17:06:38.

Photo 4: The approximately 460 metres (complete with hurdles) Adrian Lia claimed to have run in 2 minutes 36 seconds.

Photos 5: An aerial view of the school gate below the Police HQ and the CCTV camera angles.

Serious doubts continue to emerge regarding the mysterious death of Nicholas Azzopardi, who passed away in 2008 after sustaining serious injuries in an "accident" while under arrest at the Police headquarters in Floriana.

Shortly before dying on 23 April 2008, Azzopardi was filmed telling his family that he had been severely beaten by the police and thrown (or dumped) off the adjacent bastions. Three magisterial enquiries and an internal police enquiry have since exonerated the police of all wrongdoing; but the family of the deceased has all along insisted that these enquiries overlooked vital clues and misinterpreted crucial data which would otherwise point towards foul play.

MaltaToday can confirm that serious discrepancies in the testimony of eyewitnesses was ignored by the enquiries, while crucial evidence - including CCTV footage of the Floriana depot - had been heavily tampered with.

There is evidence that pivotal CCTV footage, prepared for the inquiry into events which led to Nicholas Azzopardi being seriously injured while in police custody in 2008, was heavily edited... even though, bafflingly, the footage has since been evaluated and accepted by at least two of the three inquires held to date.

MaltaToday is in possession of clear evidence which shows that the footage prepared by court expert Martin Bajada and former police inspector Paul Caruana had been edited, and entire sequences of frames - which would have been crucial towards determining what really happened on April 9 2008 - were entirely deleted.

The footage from at least five CCTV cameras is completely missing - having been overwritten - and in one case a camera overlooking a central yard is missing because the camera was disconnected.  

More suspicious still is the fact that a critical 13-second section - that would have confirmed or denied at least one aspect of the official version of events - was deleted.

The footage, laid on the table of Parliament, raises more questions then it actually answers.  Following Azzopardi's alleged fall from the bastions beneath the police headquarters in Floriana, three enquiries have been held.

Apart from a police investigation, initiated just hours after the incident, Judge Albert Manche was appointed to hold an inquiry by former home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, in conjunction with the magisterial inquiry held by Magistrate Anthony Vella.

Judge Manche failed to appoint an independent IT expert to analyse the integrity of the CCTV footage prepared for him by former police inspector Paul Caruana and court expert Martin Bajada, and the footage was tabled in Parliament together with his report.

The selected video footage was presented together with the report to substantiate the version of events provided by the police officers implicated in the Azzopardi incident.

In his testimony, Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar, overlooking the police investigation in the absence of Police Commissioner John Rizzo, who was at the time in hospital being treated for a long-term health issue, told Manche' that Bajada "had a tough job selecting the relevant sequences of the CCTV footage".

In the magisterial inquiry held by Magistrate Anthony Vella, once again the CCTV footage provided by the Police was accepted and at no point were questions asked about the missing or edited footage.

A third inquiry was held on the request of Police Commissioner John Rizzo after one of Azzopardi's custodians, police sergeant Adrian Lia was revealed by this newspaper to have stolen €30,000 in cash from illegal gambling, before being sacked. The outcome of the third inquiry, also led by Magistrate Vella is still unknown.

CCTV footage shortcomings

Former inspector Paul Caruana, who resigned from the corps shortly after the Azzopardi incident, compiled the footage used in the initial stages, before Martin Bajada came into the picture.

Caruana stated that he was responsible for the IT department and all CCTV systems at the depot. He had also said that he was the only one to have access to the recordings.

The Azzopardi family questions the reason why Caruana was the only person engaged to select the footage and the Forensic department was never involved in the inquiries. Clearly, the Forensic Science Laboratory is better equipped than the IT department to analyse video footage since it has the necessary expertise and tools.

The footage of Azzopardi's last movements at the Police headquarters was passed over to court expert Martin Bajada on 27 April 2008, one day after he was appointed by Magistrate Vella. Inspector Graziella Muscat, one of the officers present during Azzopardi's interrogation, handed over the selected footage which was compiled by Paul Caruana.

Other footage from the 8 and 9 April, the days Azzopardi was held at the Police headquarters, was handed over to Bajada on the 28 April after Bajada complained about the footage handed obver to him in the first instance.

Once again, after viewing this footage, Bajada was not happy and asked to be involved in the selection of the footage himself.

This means that the footage was gathered 16 days after the incident took place meaning most of the footage regarding the incident had been overwritten, however Bajada left no trace audit of which footage was left out.

The Police headquarters in Floriana operates three independent CCTV systems. The first server, kept by the corp's IT services department is retained for up to a month or more but the footage presented is edited with no audit trail.

The footage on the second server, the Special Branch, is normally kept for a week, however during the inquiries it emerged that all footage was lost after it was overwritten. In the Manche inquiry, Caruana admitted that he knew about this problem months before, however nothing was done to resolve it. 

The third server, at the headquarters' Control Room are also kept for one week however, in his report Caruana admitted that Cam 5 which overlooks the CID Yard looking towards the street was disconnected at the time "due to redecoration of the Police HQ main building." Caruana, who was responsible of the corps' IT department, had presented a report on the CCTV footage system and explained that while the time on two servers had been switched to winter time, the IT server was still showing winter time. Although this should mean that the difference between the IT server footage and the rest should be of an hour, in his Incident Analysis, Bajada said the variance stands at approximately 54 minutes and 45 seconds.

In his 12-page report, Caruana gave a sequential explanation of footage which shows and supports the version of events provided by the police officers involved in the Azzopardi incident, first gathered by the police investigation a mere three hours after the incident.

Martin Bajada's footage

In the research and analysis carried out by Azzopardi's family, a number of shortcomings were discovered in the analysis provided by Bajada. These shortcomings are very noticeable and one wonders why these shortcomings were not pointed out in any of the inquiries.

Martin Bajada, a court expert, offers a wide range of services ranging from legal to digital forensic services. He entered this field after having his employment at AirMalta terminated under suspicious circumstances in the 1990's.  

The Azzopardi family pointed out a number of problems, chiefly that the Manche' report does not include a proper trace audit of what was deleted from the original footage. Another main bone of contention for the Azzopardi family is the synchronisation and variance of time Bajada provided.

Bajada, who prepared the edited CCTV footage, failed to follow his own guidelines, outlined during a talk he gave in January 2012 which focused on the 'Retrieval of video & CCTV evidence' for police investigations.

In his talk, Bajada's highlighted the importance of the 'time check'. However, in the footage he prepared for the Manche' report, Bajada omitted the exact time sequence and synchronisation between cameras, which is necessary to select the correct data.

Among other omissions and mistakes in Bajada's report was deleted footage from a number of cameras and footage was attributed to the wrong cameras.

Requests by Azzopardi's family to verify whether the original back-up footage used by Bajada to select the images still exists, were never answered.

Adrian Lia's conflicting versions

In his testimony, disgraced former police sergeant Adrian Lia claimed that while Azzopardi was being accompanied to his car by himself and police officer Rueben Zammit, he suddenly remembered that Azzopardi's estranged wife and his mother-in-law were waiting in the reception area.

Azzopardi was being taken to his car parked outside the depot to have the car searched, although, in violation of all police procedures, hours earlier his keys had been taken away along with all his possessions except for a gold bracelet, which later went missing.

To get to the car Azzopardi had to go through the reception area and Lia claimed that he went to the reception area to make sure that Azzopardi does not come across his wife and mother-in-law. 

Lia claimed that when he got to the reception, Azzopardi's wife and mother law asked him to meet Inspector Graziella Muscat who was leading the interrogations. On his part, Lia informed Muscat about this request and was informed that another female police officer would be sent to the reception area to accompany Azzopardi's wife and mother-in-law to Muscat's office.

The two were present at the depot throughout the interrogation on 9 April, which lasted over five hours, on the pre-text that they were there to hand over fresh clothes and food to Azzopardi.

According to Lia, as soon as he was returning to the road behind the forensic department where he had left Azzopardi and Zammit, he first stopped by at the forensic laboratory and informed the officers there that he will be bringing in Azzopardi to have his details taken.

At this point, Lia said that he turned around the corner and saw Azzopardi and Zammit standing by a wall, 20 metres away from him, where the incident subsequently took place. From investigations carried out by Azzopardi's family, Nicholas Azzopardi was retreived unconscious at least 60 metres away from where Lia was standing.

In his testimonies, Lia recounted that as soon as he called Zammit and Azzopardi to reach him, Azzopardi launched himself towards the wall overlooking the bastion as Zammit turned around to look in Lia's direction.

He then said that Zammit, who weighed around 65 kilogrammes, grabbed Azzopardi, who weighed 120 kilograms, by one hand while Azzopardi was hanging over the wall overlooking the ditch below the depot. Lia claimed that Zammit was trying to prevent Azzopardi from jumping off the wall but after a brief struggle, Azzopardi fell down the wall.  This is where Lia's three different versions of what happened next come in.

The three versions

Version 1 In his testimony in the initial police investigations held three hours after the incident, led by Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar, Lia said "On seeing this I went running down."

Version 2 In the inquiry held by Judge Manche, Lia testified on 8 May 2008 and said: "I ran off to where Nicholas was. I ran down towards the school, where I found some difficulties because I had to jump over a gate, I also needed to jump over another gate."

Version 3 On 13 May 2008, Lia told Magistrate Anthony Vella: "I got to the (depot's) gate where I came across a car and I asked him to take me to the school, I jumped the fence, no not a fence but a gate, and another gate inside. The police officer who took me there stayed by the gate."

Reuben Zammit's testimonies

In all enquiries, both Lia and Rueben Zammit were called to testify together. Zammit's testimonies also do not make any reference to a car in the initial investigation held on 9 April and the Manche inquiry on 8 May.

However, on 13 May, Zammit told Magistrate Vella that he ran to the depot's gate together with Lia and two unnamed persons, who he could not identify, backed the third version. Zammit added that they came across a car and Lia was taken to the school gate by car but there was no space for him. Zammit was never asked why there was no space for him in the car but he explained that he ran to the school gate.

 Mysteriously, Lia only mentioned the car in his third testimony. If one where to believe his first two versions, it would mean that he covered an approximate distance of 460 metres between the spot behind the forensic department and the three-metre high gate outside the Lorenzo Manché school below the depot in just 2 minutes and 36 seconds.

This transpires from CCTV footage showing Lia arriving behind the Forensic department building at 17:04:02. Lia claimed that this was the moment when he saw Zammit and Azzopardi standing by the wall, before Azzopardi allegedly fell down the wall. Inexplicably the same camera (Camera 5) does not picture Zammit running towards the depot gate.

In the CCTV footage taken from Camera 8, Lia is seen already behind the gate at 17:06:38.  However, the CCTV footage does not show Lia arriving at the gate closing access to the ditch below the bastions and does not show Lia climbing up the gate. The only footage available shows Lia running from the gate towards the spot where Azzopardi laid unconscious. 

The CCTV cameras are triggered by any kind of movement. The camera's motion sensor seems to have been working fine as movement of cars and other persons were captured moments before and after the incident happened.

This indicates that the footage was doctored because the footage does not show the arrival of the car, Lia standing in front of the gate or Lia climbing up and down the gate. Yet, the footage does show a small white car parked behind the three-metre-high gate and a man wearing a white shirt standing next to the car, in front of the gate.

This unidentified man, who Lia said is a police officer, is seen standing behind the gate even when the Civil Protection Department personnel arrive on site.  The man in the white shirt was never identified and is seemingly ignored by all inquiries.

Yet, a second man is seen in the footage in front of the gate. This man was identified as Pollice Officer Emmanuel Zerafa who told Magistrate Vella that he was walking towards his car which was parked close to the school gate. Zerafa said that he saw another person next to Adrian Lia but did not recognise the other man. "I do not know whether he was a police officer, but I imagine that he was a police officer."