Heritage Malta’s attempt to hide Palace theft foiled by The Shift

Aqra bil-Malti

When The Shift asked Heritage Malta to explain the disappearance of valuable vases and a clock from the Palace during opening hours earlier this week, Heritage Malta turned to TVM to announce the theft it had kept secret knowing it could no longer keep it hidden.

The Shift discovered that during the ongoing biennale, three majolica vases and a clock, all of historical value, went missing from a small room next to the Green Room on the first floor of the Palace.

While Heritage Malta Chairman Mario Cutajar and his CEO, Noel Zammit, were immediately informed, they failed to raise the alarm about the second theft of cultural heritage in two months.

Contacted yesterday morning by The Shift and asked to confirm the theft, CEO Noel Zammit stalled. “I am currently driving and in a meeting,” the CEO said. “Please send me an email,” he added.

The report of the theft then appeared on TVM while The Shift’s questions remained unanswered.

Fully aware that Heritage Malta’s attempts to hide the theft had reached The Shift, Zammit issued a brief statement to the government’s propaganda outlet, PBS, announcing the police were investigating the theft.

In the statement, which was not even sent to The Shift, Zammit confirmed that historical artefacts had gone missing from the Presidential Palace and that the police had been called in to investigate.

Zammit did not mention the date when the theft happened and when the official police report was filed.

The theft from the President’s Palace of cultural heritage held by Heritage Malta is the second in two months.

Last month, two gold medals disappeared from the Maritime Museum in Birgu.

On that occasion, Heritage Malta only issued a press release when the man who had taken the medals was apprehended, just a day after the incident happened.