The institutions are working… to protect those close to Robert Abela

The institutions are still working – but only for the Labour’s friends.

Robert Abela’s business partner in that notorious “small Zabbar plot”, Christian Borg, has just been acquitted of another series of crimes. Not because he didn’t commit those crimes but because the prosecution messed up again.

Borg was cleared of illegally employing foreign workers at a Luqa carwash after a series of blunders by the prosecution and investigations that were “far from satisfactory”.

Borg, 28, the registered director of Goldcar Operations, is also accused of kidnapping and threatening a man while being investigated for suspected narcotics smuggling and money laundering.

The wilful botching of the carwash case was so shamelessly overt that even Magistrate Nadine Lia, presiding over the case, launched a blistering attack on the prosecution.

She said the prosecution’s work was a superficial investigation, “The court cannot but observe that the investigation carried out was far from satisfactory”.

The prosecution hadn’t even bothered to establish the basic facts.  The magistrate was compelled to spell out the role of the police: “The police’s job was to ensure that claims made (by Christian Borg) in his statement were corroborated”. The police hadn’t even carried out the most elementary of tasks.

Borg was charged with illegally employing foreign workers without a valid permit, failing to notify ETC (now Jobsplus) and relapsing. But the prosecution charged him in his personal capacity and in the name of a specific company, Goldcar Car wash.

The Court declared it did not have the “slightest doubt” that Borg was intimately connected with Goldcar. Borg even said in his statement to the police that he was “involved in Goldcar Operations Ltd”.

The six foreign workers that Jobsplus officials found working at the carwash all stated that Borg was “the boss”.  The court was also convinced of the link between Borg and the illegal workers.

The court was confident that Borg committed a crime – but it wasn’t the crime on which he was charged by the prosecution.

The Court noted that the prosecution had enough documentation to charge Borg with the crimes as a representative of a business.  Instead, the prosecution chose to charge him in the name of a specific company – and then failed to prove that Borg was indeed linked to that company.

This does not seem to be a mistake.  This was no simple oversight.  It looks like the prosecution was incredibly diligent in ensuring that it did not provide evidence to prove that Borg was linked to the company named in the charge sheet.

The prosecution seems to have gone to great lengths to avoid linking Borg with Goldcar car wash, providing Borg with a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Even Magistrate Lia pointed out that all the prosecution had to do to confirm Borg’s links with Goldcar was “a simple check with the Malta Business Registry”.

The prosecution had every opportunity to verify the information and request permission to correct the charge sheet against Christian Borg.  If the prosecution wanted, it could easily have amended that charge sheet – and Borg would have been found guilty.

But the prosecution chose not to do that.  Why?

The court was so appalled that it pointed out the very fact that the prosecution failed to make the necessary changes to the charge sheet to ensure Borg’s conviction even though it had “every opportunity”.

This is scandalous. When the accused is a self-declared friend of the prime minister whose been involved in a dodgy deal worth tens of thousands of euro with Robert Abela, that scandal assumes massive proportions.

The prosecution’s failures were not only massive but also numerous.  Even the most hapless officer could not possibly pull off so many fundamental errors in a single prosecution through negligence or oversight. The long series of omissions by the prosecution could only have been by design.

The prosecution failed to summon the foreign workers who were employed illegally to testify. The statements those foreign workers gave to the police were not even registered, let alone exhibited in the records of the case.  No other statements were taken from them by the police.

None of the other workers present at the Goldcar carwash who witnessed the raid conducted by the ETC (now Jobsplus) on 11 December 2018 were called to testify.

The man presented as the director of Goldcar Operations Ltd, Antoine Bugeja, who assumed responsibility for the employment of those illegal workers and provided an alibi for Borg was “just a screen”, according to the court.

He couldn’t even answer basic questions about the company.  He gave “vague replies” on the witness stand.

Yet the prosecution didn’t put any relevant questions to him.  It didn’t challenge his claims that he was the company’s director. The court was convinced he wasn’t.

The prosecution didn’t even run basic verifications about his claimed role. It didn’t even check the Malta Business Registry. The prosecution didn’t even call any of the employees at Goldcar Car wash to ask them whether they knew or had ever seen Antoine Bugeja, the supposed director of the company they worked for.

The court was convinced that those workers were employed illegally.  The court didn’t have the “slightest doubt” that Borg was intimately connected to Goldcar. The court concluded that Bugeja was “just a screen”.

The prosecution succeeded – in ensuring Borg’s acquittal.

No wonder Robert Abela and his ministers keep repeating the mantra that “the institutions are working”. Of course, they are. Somebody has a vested interest in keeping Borg happy.

Somebody is desperate to ensure Borg keeps the many secrets he harbours about those he did business with to himself.

In a normal country, such a calamitously disastrous prosecution would lead to a thorough investigation of the prosecuting officers. The justice minister would demand an inquiry into the abysmal failures of the prosecution.

Instead, Jonathan Attard claimed, “I am seeing, with facts, the authorities of the country working”.