Stephanie Chircop was arrested and detained overnight AFTER Silvio Scerri became aide to Police Minister
Stephanie Chircop
Times of Malta front page today
Times of Malta ran a front-page story today in which it reproduces the timeline of events in the Silvio Scerri/Scott Dixon murder plot investigation.
The newspaper itself describes the police’s reply as “uncharacteristically long and prompt”.
Stephanie Chircop and Scott Dixon reported the matter to the police in late 2011, the police told Times of Malta. “As far back as 2012”, the investigation into a conspiracy to murder had already turned into an investigation into a false report.
This conflicts with what Inspector Chris Pullicino, who was/is the investigating officer, said in court a few days ago: that it “might be” a false report.
Here is one piece of crucial information that the police left out of their reply to Times of Malta, perhaps because it is rather damning of Silvio Scerri. Despite their claim now that ‘false report’ suspicions began in 2012, it was only three months after the Labour Party was elected to government and Scerri became chief of staff in the Police Ministry, that the police summoned Stephanie Chircop for questioning – on 1 June 2013.
When she went for questioning of her own volition, she was arrested and held in a lock-up cell for an entire day and night, and then until 5pm the following day. While she was locked up for 33 hours, the investigating officer, Inspector Chris Pullicino, interviewed her only once, indicating that her detention in a cell was nothing more than a form of abusive harassment and intimidation for personal – not police – reasons.
At that point, the police entered Ms Chircop’s home and took her mobile phone and her laptop computer, both of which they still have almost a year and a half later. On both devices, Chircop had information and evidence relating to disputes over the custody of her and Scerri’s children.
18 Comments Comment
Reply to Joe Fenech Click here to cancel reply
I am concluding that Times of Malta is letting the government use its credibility. In the process, the newspaper is losing it.
‘ the newspaper itself describes the police’s reply as “uncharacteristically long and prompt” ‘
Surely it over-emphasized lots of unnecessary details, which is what liars do.
B`xejn m`ghadni niskanta. Fejnu dak tal-hbieb tal-hbieb u crieki go crieki?
Where are the human rights evangelists when one needs them?
What a terrible abuse of power. Stuff of dictatorships.
I feel sorry for Ms Chircop, and her children. It’s a good thing she left that jealous LOSER.
Can the police enter somebody’s house without a warrant and without that person being there? This seems like a page from a third-world banana-republic.
More likely tactics by N. Korea, China and the KGB.
Is it legal to hold someone for 33 hours?
[Daphne – 48 hours, but the police must have just cause.]
48 hours is the maximum. It does not mean that a person can, no matter what, be kept for that amount of time, much less that he or she should be so kept.
Detention must always be justified by relevant and sufficient reasons both in respect of the initial arrest and in respect of its duration.
The need to interrogate the detained person several times in connection with complex factual issues or the need to carry out collateral investigations of other facts or the interrogation of other people may justify a person’s detention for more than a few hours.
But detaining a person for 33 hours (which would necessarily include an overnight stay) for that person to be interrogated only once appears to be a flagrant breach of the law and of that person’s fundamental right to liberty.
Ilbes takkuna, Scerri, forsi taqbad xi announcer tas-Super One.
Kieku ma kontx qisek tapp tal-luminata Manuel kien isiblek xi Rumena. Insomma, hu qisu tapp ukoll, imma xorta sab wahda.
It-tapp tal-luminata should find himself one of those mercenary Russian beauties that are for sale online.
Ara Manuel issa qieghed igib il-muturi tal-pulizija dirett minn tar-Regina Auto Dealer.
Dawn il-muturi huma second hand u issa jippretendi li jaghtu kocc xhur ohra xoghol.
Tghid xtara biss is-sireni brand new biex juri lil kulhadd ara ghaddej il-Farawni u biex ma jinharqux malajr?
Qammiel mhux mal-mara biss imma minn mal-pulizija wkoll.
Why is this article invisible on my online edition of Times of Malta? Am I the only one?
Is there no such thing as illegal arrest in Malta?
Detaining people invited to help the police in their investigations practically for the maximum number of days permitted by law, with just a short interrogation, is evidently a “softening up” ploy to induce the arrested person to agree to anything so as to be allowed to go home and rejoin the worried family.
The result of any such interrogation should lack credence.
So the moral is never go to the depot of your own free will.
[Daphne – EXACTLY. That’s why I refused to go when two senior officers turned up at my gate with an arrest warrant on the eve of the general election, and why I called in the television cameras and the press. It took more than an hour of stand-off, but they finely compromised on the Mosta police station (with all the press waiting outside). People think I called in the press for publicity. I didn’t. I called them in for my own security.]
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/coerced.htm
This whole saga stinks to high heaven.
It points a very big finger indeed to Scerri and his boss.
Their lunga manus has its finger prints all over.
There is no other plausible explanation.
The flip side of the Labour “bull ” taunting mentality.