Video | ‘Police chiefs told months ago that we had a rat amongst us’ – Police officer

Police chiefs were reportedly told months ago by their subordinates that they had a ‘rat’ within their unit who informed hunters on raids.

“We had told our superiors many times that somebody amongst us was being quite funny, as on almost each raid we carried out, we found the hunters literally waiting for us…” a police constable told MaltaToday, adding that it was “impossible for anybody not to notice what was going on.”

The policeman was speaking under anonymity as the force was rocked by a bribery scandal that has led to the arrest and suspension of PC Kenneth Sevasta, reportedly singled out to have been ‘on the take’ by a hunter who was called in for questioning after being caught on camera with a shotgun in a field last April.

The hunter – identified as serial offender Eric Scicluna, 38 of Mtarfa – asked to see Commissioner John Rizzo, and in a bid to save his face, revealed details of how he bribed officers to obtain information on where raids were going to be conducted by the Administrative Law Enforcement unit (ALE).

In replies to questions by MaltaToday that broke the story on Wednesday, Home Affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici confirmed that “an officer will be arraigned in court.”

“Some of the hunters would greet us with smiles,” the policeman explained. “They enjoyed embarrassing us in front of the bird watchers, and in many cases there would be little we could do because the illegal hunters would have had enough time to hide their weapons and pretend they were in the fields for a picnic.”

This situation was corroborated by BirdLife Malta director Tolga Temuge who explained that “since BirdLife Malta started conducting systematic surveillance operations, we have been noticing specific cases on particular persons or areas where the police response (district or ALE) was either null nor inefficient.”

Tolga Temuge added that a very clear example of this “involves a group of known poachers operating in the Salina area. These individuals, who were involved in the assault on a BirdLife Malta fieldworker in the presence of the police a few weeks ago, have been illegally hunting and trapping at the same site for years.  Even after the most recent assault and they are still active on a near-daily basis.  Yet,  whenever anyone tries to report them, it is often extremely difficult to get either the police to take action, with response time often taking hours.”

Another case in point is that in areas such as Dingli, BirdLife Malta has noted that there have been many occasions when the organisation called the district police to intervene and stop illegal activities, and the perpetrators get noted packing up and leaving shortly after the call is made. 

“It is not clear whether this is because the poachers have a network of spotters watching police activity, or whether there are other reasons, but in some cases the poachers leave the area shortly after we report them to police.”

Tolga Temuge adds however that BirdLife Malta’s experience with the ALE over the years has been mostly “positive and we acknowledge the difficult task they have as the ALE is painfully under resourced.”

He stressed that a wildlife crime unit under the ALE is urgently needed to deal with wildlife crimes including illegal hunting and trapping to more effectively deal with these criminals.

Meanwhile the Police Commissioner has reportedly launched yet another investigation into another case that was revealed by MaltaToday and involves the same hunter.

Investigations conducted by MaltaToday revealed how Eric Scicluna was awarded a police licence to work as a private security guard, despite prior convictions barring him from this employment.

MaltaToday has established that Scicluna was able to obtain a private guard’s licence issued by the Commissioner of Police, after his criminal record was ignored inside the police department.

Scicluna, who is currently a security officer assigned to banks and Mater Dei hospital, has had a string of convictions by the Magistrates Court that include attempted bribery of a public officer in 2005, and grievous bodily harm on four persons at sea in August 2009.

Despite these convictions, no red flags were raised when the Commissioner of Police issued the licence to Scicluna.