Norman Vella arrest: A heavy handed approach

The Malta Independent Leader

Former television presenter Norman Vella is currently in the news after he was questioned by the police at his current place of work, as an immigration officer at the Malta International airport.
The case involves his alleged taking of photographs of two political aides as they travelled to London. The official story is that police officers were watching CCTV footage and saw him apparently take a couple of snaps.

He was subsequently held for four hours of questioning and had his mobile phone and a tablet confiscated. Mr Vella said he cooperated with the police and showed them his phone and the other device. He said the police found no such images. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday said that Mr Vella was not arrested and that he was held for “questioning”.

Since then, Mr Vella has gone on record and told the media that he was read his Miranda Rights, and was also given the opportunity to speak to a lawyer, a right which he exercised. This sounds very much like arrest, and not police questioning. When a person is read their rights and warned that anything they say may be taken down and used as evidence in a court of law, it is an arrest. We have to wonder why this heavy handed approach was taken. The photographs Mr Vella allegedly took have not been published anywhere and in addition, no photographs were found on any of the devices that were confiscated by the police.

The approach was heavy handed and we believe that if a person is read their rights, or in local police parlance given a “police caution”, the right to speak to a lawyer and is questioned for four hours, then they have very much been placed under arrest.

And it goes beyond that. If the police thought they saw Mr Vella do something untoward, how did they not check if any photographs had been posted online before this whole hoo-ha ensued? Why did they not immediately release him if they found that no photographs had been taken or found on the devices? Everyone is savvy with technology nowadays, all it would take would be a quick scan of his phone’s photographs, the tablet’s photographs and a quick check of his email client to see if any had been sent and deleted.

One also has to ask the question as to whether or not what Mr Vella was alleged to have done was illegal in the first place. People are not allowed to take photographs in the hand luggage screening area to ensure security, no more, no less. It does not seem to be the case in other parts of the terminal building. Tourists and locals alike constantly take snaps to keep as mementoes or even to post on social networks to tell their friends and families where they are. Whether or not an employee within the Immigration Department is allowed to do it is another matter entirely, and that would be stipulated in their code of conduct, contract or whatever you may want to call it. If that is the case, then it is his employers, in this case the government, that should have taken disciplinary action.

The fact of the matter remains according to the official version, the police acted in haste. Sure, if they were within their rights to do it, question Mr Vella, check if he took the photographs and check his gadgets. But to go the full Monty and read him his rights is over the top. And if the gadgets have been screened and checked, give them back. Everyone keeps all their private information on such documents, and this is a breach of personal privacy.