Police justification for taking and retaining Norman Vella’s phone and iPad when they don’t even have a crime to charge him with
Published:
October 30, 2013 at 11:21am
I’m under a lot of time pressure this morning and can’t transcribe it from these photographs I received. But you will manage to read it if you click on the images and enlarge them – or, if you need to enlarge them further, download them to your computer and use the magnify option.
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Bollocks! Taking a photo of someone can never constitute disclosure of professional secrecy.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131030/local/migration-eu-still-awaiting-maltas-application-for-emergency-assistance.492574#.UnDi0r41jIU
Mbasta…bdieha minn sormha l-istorja il-PM
Yes, I used to get that all the time, contractors blue in the face they’re not getting paid.
One call to accounts and the answer would be if contractor decides to send an invoice they will.
Sigh.
The “Bachelor of Arts” and the “Legal Procurator” is/are not at all convincing.
The “Commissioner of Police” is positively “scary”.
Is “Domine direge nos” still the motto of the Malta Police Force?
If so, the Maltese public should adopt “Domine difende nos” – and no need to specify against whom.
I have never been impressed with the manner in which ‘Domine’ directed/guided the police force.
Back in the flourishing golden years of Dom’s dominance, the motto was more on the lines of ‘dominice dirige nos’.
You can certainly vouch for that, I presume.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202196329166765&set=a.10202157607478747.1073741887.1145484771&type=1&theater
Dejjem l-istess, qatt ma jhares lejn wicc min qed jitkellem mieghu.
Is Joseph Muscat kneeling?
Maltese justice? I have my serious reservations.
I suffered from stomach ache while reading them. Not because of the reading, but because of the contents. Our police force is led by an unscrupulous Stasi styled and highly partisan politically influenced man/regime.
So let me get this straight. He was arrested and his phone and tablet were confiscated not because he took photos of Kurt and Ramona, but so that the police could take his devices and start digging on him?
Welcome to the Platinum Years of Labour, as this is worse than the Golden Years.
Did you ever think that he was arrested because he took photos?
This was a clear frame-up from the very start.
Labour cannot offer any better. That is why the election results show us clearly that the majority of the Maltese nation is made up of chicken brains and self-serving people.
Jidher li l-artiklu li bih qed jittiehdu proceduri kontra Norman Vella hu dwar “kxif ta’ sigrietï professjonali”. Imma dan bis-serjeta’?
Why has Kurt Farrugia not been charged with wasting police time regarding this whole charade?
Did the police check on the CCTV whether Kurt Farrugia was taking photos of Norman Vella?
You won’t find any of this in the Maltese papers, because we’re distracted by other stuff, such as the stupid question of “a solution to traffic chaos” (short answer: Short of rebuilding Malta, there is none), but here’s some news from our Best And Oldest Friend, China.
Over the last few weeks, President Xi Jinping has mobilised a massive “internet police force” to “fight against rumours” on the the internet. Which is Chinese euphemism for blogs.
According to a directive issued in mid-September, a micrblog with a following of 5000 readers is enough to get the blogger shut down. And Chinese internet users who post a message deemed inappropriate by the authorities and reposted at least 500 times risk a three-year prison sentence.
High tech mobile wifi surveillance devices have been installed in Beijing, to localise and snoop on bloggers and blog readers.
The Chinese regime has killed off the only tiny bud of free speech and liberalism that managed, painfully, to emerge in China since 1989.
In fact most bloggers were simply following the regime’s appeal for a “war on corruption”. Xi Jinping had promised to “hunt down the flies as well as the tigers”. When the bloggers started denouncing the regime itself, they became enemies of the state.
Joseph Muscat will recognise these tactics, and will obviously approve. Lacking the sophisticated technology of his Chinese friends, he is simply confiscating mobile phones and laptops, or sending policemen to bloggers’ homes in the middle of the night.
Daphne be prepared.You’re our N.1 blogger and big brother is watching
What our erstwhile Police Commissioner fails to say is that Article 335 A et seq is only intended for those situations and circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that a criminal offence has been committed. He says that Article 335T exists in a context. Indeed it does. The context is the following:-
355P. The Police, when lawfully on any premises, may seize
anything which is on the premises if they have reasonable grounds for believing that it has been obtained in consequence of the commission of an offence or that it is evidence in relation to an offence or it is the subject of an alert in the Schengen Information System and that it is necessary to seize it to prevent it being concealed, lost, damaged, altered or destroyed.
In other words, there has to be reasonable suspicion of an offence. What is the offence here? I am still trying to understand this point. What is the offence here? We are still trying to understand with what Norman Vella will be charged, if at all. What is this heinous crime which he has allegedly committed?
And all this hullaballo about CCTV footage. Let’s see it then, shall we. Why didn’t they just issue charges against Mr. Vella? They could have held him for up to 48 hours and charge him in the meantime.
Indeed this is all a smokescreen. If I were Mr. Vella, I would have my personal property (once released) scanned for bugs and trojans lest the forces that be bug the devices to the prejudice of Mr. Vella’s freedom. Better still, I would throw them away. Freedom is priceless.
Good luck Mr. Vella. It seems you will be needing it.
This can happen to anyone of us. By us I mean the non-switchers with balls.
This is the new dawn. The contents and the slyness in this document sends shivers down my spine.
But they will not succeed. We will defend what is upright.
Norman, keep up the fight. They are doing their best to intimidate us all. You are not alone.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-10-30/news/court-to-decide-if-norman-vella-gets-phone-tablet-back-3038806016/
Ok, footage shows Norman pointing his mobile to the ground.
Yep, he was taking photos of Kurt. Guilty as charged.
Dal-kummisarju fejn sabuh, f’Kinder Sorpresa?
And still not a word from Peppi.
Manuel Mallia wrote that on behalf of his puppets, waiters or regim. With this PL government even China is more democatic.
What I find very strange in this court application is that it was personally signed by Peter Paul Zammit under his hand and not by the AG or a lawyer from the prosecution office of the Police Corps.
This personal involvement by the Commissioner of Police simply drives home the point that has been floated all along that the Police Corps has become a fiefdom of a few ‘tal-qalba’.
Back in the 80s not even the notorious Lawrence Pullicino – also a lawyer with a warrant – ever involved himself as a party in any case involving the police, even those much hotter than this one.
The very fact that the present Commissioner of Police is now signing off on applications and ‘noti’ is simply sending the wrong message that nothing is really in order or going as it should in the police force.
If the CCTV allegedly picked up Norman Vella taking photos with his smartphone, why did they also confiscate his iPad?
The alleged illegality was not committed with the latter so I don’t see any reasonable justification for it being withheld by the Police as part of these “investigations”.
And if he allegedly emailed them to you, I would expect the logical consequence to be that they confiscate your computer, too, Daphne, to snoop through your emails and search for “proof” preferably after 9pm.
Better still, why not ask Norman Vella’s service provider to release this information to the Security Services?
The justification of police action is so circuitous that just reading it is making me dizzy.
And we were worried about a flat in St John’s Square when it is boiling down to extreme repression against democracy.
Times Updated at 7 p.m.
A Magistrate declared this evening that there was no reasonable suspicion that former broadcaster Norman Vella had committed a crime and ordered that his iPad and iphone be returned immediately by the police.
Whilst giving evidence the Commissioner of Police is reported to have said “Mr Vella was an immigration officer and in his position he could hold no information about whether someone had left the country or not. There could never be any transmission of data regarding passenger movements and there was a specialised computer system to protect this data.”
Who needs to transmit data when this same data is posted on Facebook accounts by the individuals themselves, telling all their admirers that they are off to London.
Pietru Pawl Busutil must be having nightmares and panic attacks..
Peter says:
OCTOBER 30, 2013 AT 4:47 PM
PEPPI AZZOPARDI PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF WHAT’S GOING ON TO AN EX-COLLEGUE OF YOURS. WE ALL EXPECT A XARABANK PROGRAMM ON THIS SCARY MATTER.
IF THERE WON’T BE A XARABANK PROGRAMME IN THE NEAR FUTURE, THEN WE CAN FREELY SAY THAT ALL YOUR TALK ABOUT FREEDOM IS TOTAL CRAP.
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Yes Peter, I’m taking bets at a hundred to one that the darling of Castille, not Muscat, he’s the other darling, will still be there in a year’s time. So TOTAL CRAP it will remain.