New head of Security Service to be announced this week

A new head of the Malta Security Service is expected to be appointed this week, after former head Godfrey Scicluna had to face police charges over a driving incident that was ignored by police investigators for over six months.

The MSS, currently headed by acting chief Francis Sciberras, 64, is now the subject of a police probe that came hot on the heels of revelations by MaltaToday back on 26 January, 2013.

Police are informed that a dossier on tax avoidance by oil trader George Farrugia, who has turned State's evidence after he was given a presidential pardon, could have been systematically decimated before being handed over to the finance ministry and finally to the Tax Compliance Unit.

MaltaToday had revealed that it was a member of the Malta Security Services who had informed then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi in the summer of 2011 of the invoices pertaining to George Farrugia's activities, after he was accused by his family of siphoning some €6 million in commissions on oil imports from family business Powerplan.

The MSS member personally came to Gonzi with the information in the summer of 2011 to inform him of Farrugia's activities and his personal company Aikon Ltd, with the related invoices: Gonzi had told the officer to report the allegation to the Commissioner of Police, without taking any further ownership of the matter.

Police are effectively probing contacts made between the former MSS head Godfrey Scicluna and another government ministry, before the dossier was finally handed to the finance ministry.

The resulting dossier, or parts of it, became the subject of a tax investigation by the TCU on Aikon Ltd in August 2011, but was never investigated by the economic crimes unit. Focusing on the under-declaration of taxation, the TCU allegedly failed to connect Aikon Ltd to oil trader George Farrugia, who had formally assumed ownership of the company as of November 2011 after his nominee directors resigned their positions.

When news of the tax inquiry was broken, then finance minister Tonio Fenech denied any knowledge of the case or that it involved Farrugia; he later revealed it was the MSS that passed on the dossier to his head of secretariat Alan Caruana, who passed them on to the TCU without seeing what the documents were and without informing Fenech.

this newspaper received a confirmation from the OPM that Scicluna was suspending himself from office pending procedures concerning the "accidental and involuntary traffic accident" that took place in June 2012.

However Commissioner of Police John Rizzo confirmed Scicluna would be facing criminal charges, after MaltaToday brought incident to his attention earlier last week. The matter is believed to have been kept under wraps since June 2012 even though police officers were seen at Mater Dei Hospital inquiring on the incident at the time of the event.

Scicluna could be accused of having caused grievous bodily harm to an elderly man whom he ran over while driving.

Former MSS head Godfrey Scicluna suspended himself after MaltaToday inquired over why no steps had been taken against Scicluna for causing grievous bodily harm to an elderly man whom he ran over while driving back in June 2012. The Commissioner of Police himself was not aware that Scicluna had been involved in the accident until MaltaToday raised the incident.