Crazy story no. 2
timesofmalta.com – Friday, 26th June 2009
Car returned to owner after 33 years
A car seized by the Customs Department 33 years ago is to be released and given back to its owner.
Mr Justice Raymond C Pace, in a judgement delivered this morning, ordered the Controller of Customs to release the Mercedes, imported by Paul Smith in 1974 for use by his mother. The car was seized in January 1976 on grounds that there were some suspicions about it. These had not been proven and the Customs Department then seized the car on the basis customs regulations were being violated.
But these regulations had been declared null and void in 1988 by the Constitutional Court as they allowed confiscation of objects without the necessity of judicial proceedings. As a result, the seizure of the car was also null and void. However, it had remained in the possession of the Customs Department until in 2007 when the Department issued a seizure order on the basis of a violation of customs regulations.
Mr Smith contested this order. The court noted that the seizure order could not be issued and legal action by the department could only have been taken within 10 years of its importation.
The court therefore found in favour of Mr Smith and ordered the Controller of Customs to immediately grant him possession of the car.
Ah, sweet memories of what life was like in 1976, when anything you brought into the country, from a chocolate bar to a car to a consignment of goods, could be snatched by corrupt customs officials and no reason given. It was organised theft.
If they liked it enough they would keep it (or their political bosses would) and if they didn’t like it enough, they would hold out for a bribe to release it.
And sometimes, just sometimes, they would seize your stuff only to give you a hard time, because you had been earmarked as an enemy of the state.
How sad that not enough people know this, or have any idea what it was like, or think that this Mercedes seized for no reason by customs officials was a freak occurrence, rather than the freak occurrence being the fact that they found a man who was prepared to spend 33 years in court rather than grease some wheels.
And sometimes, just sometimes, they wouldn’t even bother seizing your things. Instead they would shuffle papers and lose files until you came up with a brown envelope with just the right amount of cash. That was after you’d had your green, blue, yellow, pink and white forms processed by slipping a fiver in between each one.
Those who talk about corruption today just haven’t a clue. That was in 1976. By 1987 people were paying bribes for everything, from a telephone line to a television to a place in the queue.
When I was hauled to court with a group of others in 1984, after Anglu Farrugia forced me to sign a false confession in the police lock-up where I had spent 27 hours in pitch darkness, even the courtroom clerk asked us for three pounds each “for administrative purposes”.
He put them in his pocket and the magistrate sitting directly above him didn’t even blink. We paid up because we had never been prosecuted before and actually thought that we had to pay for the privilege. The worst thing is that not even the lawyers spoke up and objected. That magistrate, incidentally, was not the same one who heard the case and delivered the judgement.
U imbaghad Anglu Farrugia jmur jeqred dwar ix-xiri tal-voti, waqt li qabda mhuh ta’ tigieg imorru jivvutaq ghall-partit tieghu – “Because I didn’t vote Labour! I voted for Louis Grech!”
Ahjar ma nghid xejn izjed.
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1987 to 2009. 22 years
Plus ce change, plus c’est la meme chose.
[Daphne – Everything changed, John. You really have no idea.]
“When I was hauled to court with a group of others in 1984, after Anglu Farrugia forced me to sign a false confession in the police lock-up where I had spent 27 hours in pitch darkness, even the courtroom clerk asked us for three pounds each “for administrative purposes”.
Why don’t you name and shame this individual?
[Daphne – I already have. He’s deputy leader of the Collation for Change. Oh, you mean the clerk! Now how would I know his name?]
You could tell us the name of the magistrate who looked on and condoned the “theft”. Or not?
[Daphne – I could, but I will not.]
So we can draw our own conclusions.
[Daphne – Not really, no. How can you do that?]
The regulations were declared null and void in 1988! The government could have easily ordered customs to return the vehicle! The present government is to blame too.
In 30 years’ time a columnist for an Independent newspaper will be writing about how, in the dark days of 2008, government employees embezzled millions out of the VAT system with the benediction of government-appointed commissioners and of a Finance minister who ordered a police investigation when prompted by a rare honest businessman. It’s a pure case of history being documented by those who write it.
[Daphne – Your assertion that Tonio Fenech and ‘government-appointed commissioners’, whoever they are, even knew what was going on is hardly credible, and your claim that it was done with their benediction is seriously libellous. I’m publishing it while making my own views known because if I delete it you will only say that I was ‘covering up’. You fail to make one crucial distinction: that corruption in the years 1971 to 1987 was institutionalised and organised by politicians, many of whom were direct and blatant beneficiaries. What happened at the VAT department, on the other hand, concerned a few very corrupt civil servants who organised a sophisticated scam. You can blame their superiors – and how – for failing to have the necessary controls and audits in place, but you can’t accuse those superiors of being complicit or corrupt themselves. Another point: participation in this corruption was entirely voluntary. That’s a whole different kettle of fish to having to contend with customs and import licensing departments which made bribery and corruption mandatory rather than optional. With the current VAT scandal, all the businessmen involved could have taking the honest route without suffering negative consequences. They chose to take the dishonest route to ‘benefit’. This is far different to having your Mercedes held hostage pending the payment of a bribe, and having no way of getting hold of what is legally yours unless you participate in corruption. Or being denied an import licence until you pay ‘protection money’ to Il-Fusellu, acting on behalf of Patrick Holland. And shall I get started on Lorry Sant, Danny Cremona and Wistin Abela? Please.]
JoeM, to compare 2008 with the 70s and 80s is utterly ridiculous and just goes to show how little you have going on upstairs.
Incidentally, you don’t need to be afraid to reveal your name now. The days when thugs led by (PL) MPs go around beating up anyone who dares whisper a word against the rampant corruption of the time are loooooong over – thanks to the slightly-more-than-half of the population that refused to be cowed into submission by the scum that governed us illegitimately in 1987. Whatever freedoms you enjoy, even simple ones like buying the TV or car of your choice, you have to thank the heroes who voted the MLP out in 1987.
In 1987 I went to Catania to buy a decent push-chair with long handles, from Via Etnea. The ones in Malta were expensive and more like toy push-chairs for dolls. While in Sicily I also bought a telephone set which cost me some Lm2. On arriving at Sa Maison the customs officer told me that I needed a certificate from the Radio and Telegraphy Department. I returned (was it Vittoriosa?) with the said certificate but there was some other obstacle which I cannot recall.
I asked to see my phone and he brought it, put it on the floor and jumped on it. In a second it was turned to smithereens. I put the crushed phone in its box and handed it over to the officer. I left him dumbfounded, and went away without signing more papers. On the Monti stalls the phones cost around Lm5.
Recently there was another judgment about some imported coaches owned by Cancu Garage.
In view of the full report on this in today’s The Times, do you feel that you have to modify your post and comments in any way?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090627/local/car-released-after-being-impounded-for-33-years
[Daphne – No, not at all.]
You wouldn’t agree that your piece is an extreme overreaction to a bit uf bureaucratic bungling spanning 33 years and several administrations?
[Daphne – Not at all. The man in question was simply being polite and understated. He’s English, and from a certain kind of background. The whole of my extended family was involved in various lines of business (not shops) so I know exactly what I’m talking about. Also, I worked as a customs clearance clerk between 1982 and 1986, and dealt with customs every single day of my working life, driving from one department to another collecting timbri and formoli and dealing with scenes straight out of the third world. Last week in Amsterdam my son took me to an exhibition by an Italian photographer at a gallery called Foam: photographs from the real third world, the Congo and some of the worst sub-Saharan states. Many of them showed decaying post-colonial government offices with stuff falling to bits and piles of paper everywhere and broken filing cabinets and petty corruption writ large. My son was aghast, and wanted to know why I wasn’t. I told him that when I started working, Malta was like that, and I spent most of my working day going from one similar ‘dipartiment’ to another – without bribes, might I add, which made it an even greater hell.]
It’s the same story where little people are given a lot of power by those who are dishonest. On a trip from Tripoli to Djerba some 10 years ago or so, my driver stopped at a shop and came out with two bags stuffed with groceries. I made some remark about him being a good husband. “Oh no”, he said, “These will get us across the border in no time. Otherwise we’ll be stuck for hours”. Places where I encounter the soliciting of bribes invariably have a political/administrative set-up similar to the one we had in Malta during that period.
Tal-misthija wara 33 sena! koz hux misshom jisthu tal-Lejber zammewielu id-dwana mikkinu! Imnalla telaw il-PN imbghad fl-87 biex hallewielu 22 sena ohra!
[Daphne – Mhux ghal xi haga, imma turi li int Laburist minn dak it-tip li jahseb li l-politikanti jistghu jeghlbu l-ligi meta jridu. La bdiet kawza fil-qorti, il-kawza trid tispicca, u ma setaghx jigi l-prim u jghid ‘isma hej, jien ikbar mil-ligi, u dik il-karozza tridu taghmlu hekk u hekk biha.’ Ma tarax.]
Daphne, I do not see why the Nationalist administration, on inheriting such cases of abusive exploitation, could not simply put a stop to it.
[Daphne – I’ve already explained why, to somebody sarcastic called Ganni, who posted a comment to the same effect. It’s simple: the rule of law. Once the case enters the courts, that’s it. The government, prime minister, minister, whatever, cannot intervene to halt the process, however slowly those wheels of justice might grind through. To top it all, the civil service has its own systems, which cannot be over-ruled by ministers or prime ministers, either, unless we want an abusive situation as we had in 1971 to 1987. So when customs impounds a car because it has grounds for suspicion (it says), then the systems for dealing with this suspicion kick into gear. The assumption, you see, is that a customs officer is not going to impound a vehicle unless he has good reason to do so. Nobody in the straitlaced 1960s could have foreseen the wholesale corruption that lay just a few years ahead, with customs officers literally stealing people’s things out of their suitcases, in front of their colleagues and in front of the suitcase’s owner, and the suitcase owner being in no position to get redress. I cannot forget the experience of returning from Italy with my parents by sea at night, all four of us aged 12 and under, tired and fractious, and customs telling my father to pull to the side and wait. We waited for what seemed like hours until the ferry disgorged everyone and everything, and then it began. Every inch of the car was inspected. Every last one of our bags was opened, unpacked and things strewn around. My brand-new shoes were scratched with a blade “because we’re looking for drugs” – yes, right, because we really looked like a family of drug-dealers. The harassment went on for ages. Of course, all they wanted was money. But my father is the sort who wouldn’t even hand over a fiver as a matter of principle, so we must have been there half the night.]
If the case was a blatant abuse of power what was to hold the administration, as the defendant, from ceding the case? Unfortunately, the Nationalist administration has failed miserably to rectify monstrous injustices from Mintoff’s time. As a case in point, the National Bank shareholders’ case immediately springs to mind.
[Daphne – Unfortunately, there you go: another court case, which appears to have ground to a halt. My grandfather was president of the National Bank at the time it was seized, so you don’t have to remind me about that one.]
Ma jistawx jeghlbu l-ligi meta jridu, naqbel mieghek li ma setax jigi l-Prim u jghid tuh il-karozza lura. Pero’ peress li l-qorti, sa fejn naf jiena, taqa taht Ministeru wkoll, seta l-Ministru koncernat dak iz-zmien, irranga ftit is-sistema gudizzjarja biex ma jithalliex 22 sena ohra jistenna!
[Daphne – Ghandek zball. Il-ministru ma jistghax jindahal fit-tmexxija ta’ kawzi la darba jibdew jghaddu mill-procedura tal-qorti.]
Il-Partit Laburista patta ghal dawk il-hmerijiet li ghamel ghax ma rebahx elezzjoni ohra, pero qed taghtu l-impressjoni li taht il-PN ma sarux dawn it-tip ta hmerijiet jew forsi simili. F’certu kazi, kellna nies fuq il-ligi ghax hargu l-mahfriet li kien hemm bzonn!
[Daphne – Ganni, ma kienux ‘hmerijiet’ imma skandli kbar, u abbuzi horox li saru fuq id-drittijiet tan-nies.]
It’s amazing how Anglu Farrugia does not react to you saying that he forced a confession out of you. Does he fear giving his side of the story? Or is this a story he would rather forget and have everyone forget, and erase it from the public psyche?
If Anglu was a serious politician he wouldn’t even present himself as a lawyer, much less someone who is hoping that he will be Minister Of Justice once the PL get elected by default. We really have a country where kangaroos thrive.
As for the import licence sagas, what is there to say? If you didn’t pay Fusellu and Patrick Holland, you were out of business, period. Many had no choice. It’s a pity that in the case of the latter, his offspring are still thriving on his ill-gotten gains.
If Daphne’s allegation against Anglu Farrugia was false, he would surely have rushed to file a libel case. Maybe he thinks that if he maintains silence, the problem will go away.
[Daphne – He has filed a libel suit, but all it did was give me the chance to repeat everything I had written before a very packed courtroom, and to continue repeating it ever since given that the case is still proceeding through the courts and he can’t do anything about it. The best bit was when my mother testified, describing how the police came looking for me at home and refused to tell her why they wanted me. She looked at Anglu Farrugia and said: “Inti kont li gejt ghaliha. Qatt ma se ninsieh wiccek.’ He actually blushed. I also brought to court another witness to describe how Anglu Farrugia did something similar to his son, who was 16 at the time – a minor, hauled into the depot without access to a lawyer or to his parents, and kept there under interrogation. The crime he was being interrogated about? Sticking a ‘Boycott’ sticker on a Sliema building.
Also, the interesting thing is that he didn’t deny making me sign a false confession. He actually had the gall to say that he had sued me because I had damaged his chances of winning the MLP leadership election. I had written about it, you see, on the eve of that leadership election in 2003, giving it as one of the reasons why he should never become leader of the Labour Party. How can the Labour Party have as a leader a man who forced a 19-year-old girl to sign a false confession declaring that she had attacked and harmed a police officer several times her size? Ah, but now he’s deputy leader. The Labour Party, eh? Such very high standards.]
I would have given anything to see his face on that one. Please inform us when your next sitting comes up. Missu jisthi. M’ghandux qatra zejt f’wiccu?
Oh well, it’s the PL culture of today. Kollox jghaddi, Zepp! Iz-zmien jghaddi u n-nies jinsew!
Sure he could. If you read the fulll report, you will see that the courts ordered the car released in 1988.
After that, it was retained on the basis of administrative (not legal) decisons which the PM (or the minister concerned) had every authority to rescind.
[Daphne – Read my bit about the civil service.]
I have to agree with John II on this one. Customs were just as intransigent post 1987, and you could still buy your way out of inspections or hassle with a fistful of liri just until we joined the EU. Most customs officials live in veritable palaces and have lifestyles not matching their earnings because of those halcyon years. These individuals were like mice, you just could not stamp them out.
But they used to earn a lot. I’ll wager that many of them did not vote for us to join the EU. Who is going to give up such a bountiful bosom (free Maltese translation so that I don’t mention the word zejza)?
There was absolutely no reason for Customs to withhold this car after 1998,or to seize it again in 2007. I think someone wanted it as his own and was hoping that these English toffs who owned it would give up. Why? Because otherwise Customs would have sold this car long ago through their periodic auctions. A Mercedes 250SL Pagoda is worth thousands nowadays. Its a true classic car.
I think someone should look at who caused this. Any official who was unreasonable in withholding this car should be dismissed form the civil service immediately.
This episode is proof if any where needed that during Labour’s time in power, some departments were run by gangsters. I lived in Malta at the time and I do remember how it was. I hope this man can get some justice through the the courts (Maltese or European) even though the vindictive bastards responsible will get away with it.
In 1991 I returned to Malta with a huge container of my household belongings. Two customs officers duly arrived for the unloading and checking of the container in the street. The driver of the container (in collaboration, obviously) came up to me and asked me for a fiver for each of the customs men – explaining that it would spare me six hours of tedious searching. I told him to piss off. A relative overheard this exchange, said to me “kemm int cuc”, and forked out the tenner. The customs men promptly left the scene, not caring whether I had a container loaded with drugs.
I’m curious to know the authorities’ reaction when you reported the customs officers.
The translocation was stressful enough. I had no inclination to compound the stress by causing marital strife. The relative, incidentally, was not my wife.
Daphne , I really admire the patience you have to describe in detail the horrendous times under Labour. The problem is that the young ones do not believe you because they think that it is so exaggerated that it could not have happened in Malta. Only we who have seen businesses not being able to import a single item, while somebody with a well-known clothes brand who made use of Patrick Holland and Fusellu imported container-loads of clothes from Italy and had a shop in Sliema and another in Valletta full of these items. The ones who remember and try to justify or say that it is not true must have had it good as they had good friends in the right places. Re Anglu Farrugia, he is really not worth talking about.
As someone with some experience of customs matters in different places I must say I’m impressed by the sheer stamina of both Customs and Smith – where did they find the energy? In my experience either side will usually give up after the first decade – seriously – these kinds of cases can (and often do) go on for years and years until someone dies or forgets or finally gives up. I know it may not be very reassuring to hear it but this kind of thing is not unique to Malta.
You’re right to point out that it would be highly inappropriate for holders of political office to be giving directions to the police or Customs on how to proceed with individual cases.
It might be worthwhile reminding that the case against Pietru Pawl Busuttil, involving not an impounded car but charges of murder based on what was obviously a frame-up, was not dropped just because of a change of government. And that was the right thing to do.
Come on Edgar tell us who the importer with shops in Sliema and Valletta was.
[Daphne – Come on, Joe: as if you don’t know already.]
Daphne…No I do not know. I was living abroad at the time. Is he by any chance my namesake?
[Daphne – Yes, of course, I’d forgotten you were away at the time. Yes, he’s your namesake (first name, not second).]
XXXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Those were the only two shops selling any clothes worth mentioning at that time.
[Daphne – I’ve blanked out the names, Mario.]
I knew you would.
I mentioned the brand names…….not the person however. What irks me is that these people are known as fervent Nationalists, and were even appointed on boards. U ftharu!
On two occasions in the late 70s and 80s I spent holidays in Malta, one month at a time. Needless to say, staying for a month, my wife and I had a substantial amount of luggage. When passing through Customs, I was stopped by one of the officers who inquired about the contents of the bags. I explained that we were spending a whole month and had several changes of clothes and other necessities. On one occasion, the officer said, ” ara habib, tini ghaxar liri u ma noqghod niftahlek xejn” . I had no Maltese money so I offered the equivalent in dollars. He flatly refused. “Maltin iridu jkunu, sinjur” he answered. I then asked the officer if I could go to Arrivals to borrow some money from relatives who no doubt were waiting for us. He said it was all right as long as my wife stayed with him with all the luggage. I borrowed the money, paid the officer and we were let out.
The second time I was prepared and kept some Maltese liri, but went through the same experience with a different customs officer who, when I said I have no substantial gifts, said, ” U ejja sinjur, gej min tant boghod u se tghidli li m’ghandek xejn x’tiddikjara?” I said no, just clothing to which he responded, “Ara tini hames liri u ibqa ghaddej”. I gave him the money.
And someone says that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same?
Which planet is he living in? Maybe John II misses the 70s and 80s?
Jomar, to be blunt, I think you are making it up.
[Daphne – Either you’re very naive, or you weren’t an adult in those years. And if you were an adult, then you were one who never travelled or ran a business.]
Wrong on both counts.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t know, because obviously you’re anonymous, so you might as well claim to be the Queen of Sheba.]
John II – These are experiences all of us who lived through the 1980s have gone through – my personal experiences were similar. I had to pay Lm5 on returning from honeymoon in Venice in 1986 – for having brought in a gondola souvenir.
People like John II are either living in denial, or have some serious credibilty problems. On a trip to London in 1985, I had bought a game console (very basic – before PS time), which I had carefully hidden within our heavy winter clothes, having thrown away all the packaging at the hotel. The customs official pulled us to a corner table, and asked us to open all our luggage, through which he rummaged gleefully, pulling out anything which felt suspicious.
Needless to say, he found the game, and his antics would have been similar had he found out I killed his mother. After a ten-minute demoralising rant (he had purposely let my wife through), he found the ultimate solution – pay a fine of Lm50 for which he gave me a Lm10 receipt, which I obviously had to accept if I didn’t want to spend the night there.
All this unashamedly in front of his colleagues – I recall that a customs officer was considered a very desirable job in those days, I wonder why. John II, you cannot make us who lived (should I say survived) those times forget the institutionalised corruption of the Labour years. I have many more stories to add, so don’t push me.
@ John II
Maybe I was the unlucky one to have been singled out twice in a row. I am sure that there were hundreds or more who have shared the same experience, or maybe you never travelled out of Malta and back in those days because you could not afford it.
I had my wife witness the two incidents and I can assure you that what I said was fact.