Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1466079
NEWS 5 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 27 APRIL 2022 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Randolph Spiteri, head of opera- tions at the Corradino Correction- al Facility, has not been turning up for work with sources close to government telling MaltaToday the intention is to continue with changes in the prison administra- tion's management. Spiteri has denied being out on 'long leave', insisting he is out on "personal leave and nothing more". Spiteri – a former aide to PN minister George Pullicino – was the right-hand man to former prison director Alex Dalli, who suspended himself from the post following the third inmate suicide of 2021. Eventually, Dalli was re- placed by former Red Cross chief Robert Brincau. Prison sources said that an in- mate had filed a report earlier this year accusing Spiteri of wrongdo- ing. Spiteri denied the existence of this report. Questions to the government on the work status of Spiteri remained unanswered. At the end of his tenure, Dalli faced criticism from a number of activists and NGOs, who ques- tioned his hard-line tactics in pris- on, which they claim led to an in- crease in prison suicides. Sources who had spoken to this newspaper had said that Spiteri was among prison administration staff who were disseminating two petitions calling for Dalli to be re- instated as prison boss. One of the petitions was for inmates, and the other for prison guards. In a separate case, the Ombuds- man had found that prison warder Emanuel Cassar was dismissed un- justly from his job. Cassar had claimed that on 24 March 2019 he was fired in an abu- sive manner, following a "frame- up". He said that an argument between himself and Spiteri, who was CCF chief operating officer, led to his sacking. After the clash, Spiteri had asked the correctional agency's discipli- nary board to assess Cassar's be- haviour. The Ombudsman eventually found in favour of Cassar. A court in Gozo has started hearing evidence against a man from Qormi, who stands ac- cused of threatening a journal- ist both in person and over the phone after a chance meeting in Ghajnsielem last February. In an arraignment by sum- mons before Magistrate Si- mone Grech on Tuesday, police inspector Josef Gauci charged 37-year-old Edward Attard with threatening and insulting Manuel Delia and causing him to fear violence. Attard was also charged with communicating threats and insults to the journalist using electronic communications equipment. When the case was called, At- tard showed up without a law- yer assisting him. When asked by the court where his lawyer was, he explained that he didn't need one because the incident "wasn't a serious matter." The glib reply earned Attard a dressing down from the mag- istrate, who informed him that it was not for him to decide whether charges are serious or not, adding that the accu- sations he was facing were in- deed serious. The court offered to appoint a legal aid lawyer to represent him and the accused accepted. After the court was told that the legal aid lawyer on duty could not attend the arraign- ment, lawyer Joshua Grech, who happened to be present, stepped in to represent the ac- cused. Inspector Gauci testified, tell- ing the court that he had in- vestigated the case and found that the call had originated from Attard's phone. This was confirmed by another witness, who testified on behalf of mo- bile phone service provider, Epic. Delia also took the stand, tell- ing the court how he had been driving from Ghajnsielem to- wards Triq l-Imgarr not long after midday on Saturday 19 February. Delia's wife, his young daughter and one of his daughter's friends were pas- sengers, he said. He said he had been waiting behind two other cars to ex- it a side road onto Triq l-Im- garr, and had been forced to jut onto the other lane by a bad- ly-parked car, when the driver of a vehicle coming in the op- posite direction yelled at him to move closer to the car in front so that he could pass. "I tried to do so, but I was already too close to the car in front of me, so I couldn't com- ply with his request," Delia said. The other driver then recog- nised Delia and proceeded to unleash a torrent of abuse, dur- ing which the driver described himself as a Labour support- er and accused Delia of being "miserable", "proud" and tell- ing the journalist that he ought to be ashamed of himself. The diatribe had hardly finished, when the traffic cleared for both cars, which carried on in opposite directions, Delia ex- plained. But just a few minutes lat- er, Delia received a phone call from a hidden phone number, in which the caller continued his stream of insults, "adding a dose of threats and intimida- tion." "The original premise for the insults was that he had spent less than ten seconds waiting to turn into Triq il-Maghmudi- ja, but the subject of the phone call was entirely the fact that he hated me because he was a Labourite and I was a journal- ist who was miserable about his government." The rage and anger which the man had expressed, "force me to conclude that this man con- stitutes a danger to my family and I," Delia had written in his report to the police, in which he asked the matter to be in- vestigated. He explained that he felt threatened by the fact that this person clearly had no problem with verbally abusing him in a public place in broad daylight, in the presence of his family, and had made efforts to find a way to contact him so as to threaten and abuse him fur- ther. At the end of the sitting, the prosecution declared it had no further evidence to exhibit. The case will continue in July. Man charged with threatening Manuel Delia appoints no lawyer, says case 'isn't serious' Manuel Delia Prisons head of operations says leave is 'personal and nothing more'