Suspended sentence for Maltese EU civil servant in Brussels ‘anti-Semitic’ assault

A Maltese civil servant at the European Union, Stefan Grech, has been found guilty in a Brussels court of an assault on a civil servant of the EU and handed down a three-year suspended sentence.

According to the judgement seen by MaltaToday, Grech, 49, was handed down the probationary sentence on condition that he carry out no infraction in the next three years, communicate to the courts any change in his fixed address, as well as submitting himself to therapy for his alcohol habit, and carry out an unspecified number of hours of community work with a race-related organisation.

He was asked to pay the victim €500 in moral damages. She had originally asked for €10,000. He also had to pay over €1,200 in court expenses apart from legal fees. Grech has appealed the decision.

Grech was formally charged, and found guilty of, incitement to hate or violence towards people of Jewish faith, violation of anti-racism laws, and assault aggravated by racial hatred.

The incident that led to his arraignment took place in 2015, when Grech was involved in a drunken altercation with a restaurant patron and her friend.

Grech was having drinks with friends at the L’Italiano café on Rue Arlon on 16 July 2015, to celebrate his 10-year anniversary as an EU employee.

He had been drinking at the bar since 7:30pm with a group of Italian friends. At around 11:30pm, the joyous event turned sour when Grech reportedly started a rant lauding the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, to which a 50-year-old Italian woman, also a head of unit at the European Commission, objected to.

Grech is the brother of Nationalist MP Claudio Grech but over recent years he has openly supported the Labour administration.

According to the claims of the woman and her friend, who were the only witnesses brought by the injured party in the case, Grech attacked the woman when she confronted him over his rant. In her police complaint, the woman said Grech started to attack her when she told him, ‘I could be Jewish’… “That’s when all of a sudden the man took the sign in his hand and hit me in the face near my left ear. He then tried to take my neck in hands to strangle me.” 

The woman claimed Grech told her: “You should have all been killed”. After filing her police complaint, the woman was taken to hospital where she was treated for concussion. 

Grech has denied this version of events, saying he had drank considerably by the time of the incident and that his banter was misinterpreted in a moment of high jinks gone wrong. Another witness, Fabrio Fracasso, told the police that Grech was very drunk.

“Among our Italian friends were a communist and also a fascist, who showed off his tattoo of Mussolini and then went outside to his car to bring back a mock licence-plate that read ‘Mussolini’ – so I started waving it around in the face of the communist, taunting him about it by singing a fascist song. It was simply banter, nothing serious.

“At that point the woman came up on me and protested at what I was saying, pointing out that Mussolini had killed many Jews. But then I reacted, saying that what the Jews were doing to Palestinians was similar to what Hitler had done to the Jews – I might have given the woman a friendly tap on her ear with the licence plate, at which point all hell broke loose, but it was a meant to diffuse what was becoming a heavy debate… her friend at that point attacked me and it got out of control.”

The Belgian tribunal said the incident was serious but said it had been exarcebated by the excessive consumption of alcohol. The presiding judge said Grech declared that he had no recollection of the way he had acted, having told the court that he was not a racist, even presenting in court previous writings testifying to his tolerant views.

EC opens internal investigation

Grech had resigned his position as chair and member of the board of Generation2004, a trade union for EU employees.  

The European Commission has previously said it would not take any action until Belgian judicial proceedings are finalised, adding that “there is every reason for the Commission to rely on the more extensive investigative powers of the national judicial authorities.” Until the authorities have finished the investigation, “Mr Grech – like everyone else – benefits from the presumption of innocence,” a Commission spokesman had said. 

Under Commission staff rules, Grech could face immediate suspension if he is accused of serious misconduct, and also suffer a partial suspension of his salary. 

Where the official is prosecuted for those same acts in a criminal court, a final decision shall be taken only after a final judgment has been handed down by the court hearing the case.

Joel Rubenfeld, head of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, told MaltaToday he welcomed the fact that Grech had been found guilty of all charges. “We expect now from the European Commission that it will take the appropriate measures regarding Grech. A convicted anti-semite, a man who hurled anti-Jewish insults, shouted that Hitler should have killed all Jews, punched a woman in the face and tried to strangle her, has definitely no place in the European institutions.”