Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1111510
NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 1 MAY 2019 2 YANNICK PACE A police sergeant who leaked photos of an internal police re- port about Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia to Daphne Caruana Galizia back in 2017, has been fined €10,000 and had his phone confiscated by the courts. The case revolved around a post published by Caruana Gali- zia on her blog in August 2017, during the PN's leadership elec- tion, which Delia eventually won. Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb explosion two months later. In the blog post, titled "Na- tionalist Party leadership con- tender Adrian Delia replies to questions about anonymous report to the police", Caruana Galizia published a photo of an internal police report describ- ing how the police had received an anonymous call about a man selling drugs out of a silver car in Qormi. "The police immediately went there and found the car, which was parked outside Lidl's ware- house, but it was locked, and the owner was nowhere to be seen. The police waited, and when the owner of the car turned up, they stopped him and asked whether the car was his. He answered that it was," read the report. The report went on to describe how Delia was asked if he was carrying any illegal substances, on his person or in his car, to which he replied in the negative. "The police carried out an in- tensive search on the person in question and also his car, but nothing illegal or irregular was found. The owner of the car is a certain Delia, Adrian. Nothing more to report," it concluded. Following a police investiga- tion, the photo was traced back to Roderick Sammut, a police sergeant stationed at the Qormi police station and he was sub- sequently accused of having ac- cessed the data without authori- sation, as well as making copies of it and leaking it in breach of his obligations as a police of- ficer. Proceedings in court showed that Sammut had logged onto the police system using his own account and had accessed the report four times between 14 June and 13 August 2017. Sam- mut had also ran a search in the system using Delia's name. A forensic investigation of Sammut's phone found two photos "that were very similar to that which appeared on the blog and which were found in the phone's WhatsApp sent items". Testifying in court, inspector Justin Camilleri noted that the cursor in the photos found on the phone was in the same posi- tion as that which appeared on Caruana Galizia's blog. The court heard how no calls or messages between Sammut and Caruana Galizia could be found. It was confirmed that the photos had been sent via What- sApp. Furthermore, it heard Sammut had accessed the sys- tem less than two minutes be- fore the photos were saved on his phone. The court considered that Sammut had a clean police con- duct and had given the Police Corps an "impeccable" level of service over the years, with "this being his only transgression ev- er" since joining the force. However, the court said that it could not overlook the fact that Sammut had shown no remorse for his actions. It also noted that his crime was se- rious one, and that this was exacerbated by the fact that he was a police sergeant. "Re- ports filed by members of the public, whether anonymous or not, should never end up in the hands of third parties or gra- tuitously disseminated." The court handed Sammut a €10,000 fine and ordered him to pay €1,091.50 in court fees. He also had his phone confiscated. The police sergeant had leaked photos of an internal police report regarding an anonymous call about a man selling drugs in Qormi out of a car which belonged to Delia Police officer who leaked report about Adrian Delia to Daphne Caruana Galizia fined €10,000 Adrian Delia