Muscat 'shocked' at news on alleged crime boss and former party delegate David Gatt

Speaking during a press conference this afternoon, Joseph Muscat was asked about the story broken by MaltaToday that revealed how David Gatt was a PL 'Special Delegate'.

He said that he was "shocked to learn about David Gatt being a party special delegate and explained that he held the post during 2009."

The PL leader added that Gatt has been 'expelled from the party" with immediate effect. He also added that even Norman Bezzina, who was found guilty of drug trafficking last October, had been a member of a Nationalist minister's private secretariat.

Muscat also welcomed the police investigations into the recent spat of major heists, and the results achieved by the investigations.

David Gatt, 40 of Birkirkara a former police inspector, was charged last Tuesday as the main suspect in connection to a recent spate of major hold-ups and the attempted heist of the HSBC headquarters, David Gatt, was a ‘special delegate’ of the Labour party.

MaltaToday has learnt that Gatt – a lawyer who works in the firm of Labour MP Chris Cardona – was nominated by Birkirkara PL activists for the post, which he held up until recently this year.

Prior to this, Gatt was known to have Nationalist sympathies.

A former police inspector, David Gatt was this week charged with association to organised crime and complicity in a string of armed hold-ups, including the theft of one million euros from the Balzan HSBC bank branch in 2007.

David Gatt - who was dismissed from the police force nine years ago - pleaded not guilty to the string of charges, that also included last January’s attempted hold-up on a security van in Mriehel and last Friday’s attempted hold-up on a jeweler in Attard.

Prosecutors Joseph Mercieca and Michael Mallia described the former Inspector as the 'Capo dei Capi' (boss of bosses).

Additional reporting by Nestor Laiviera