Are the police doing their duty? PD asks

● Former ‘star witness’ cop taken to Mount Carmel after threatening to expose PM’s ‘Egrant lies’

Former police officer Mario Portelli (right), aka PC 99, was admitted to Mount Carmel Hospital on Friday against his wishes after several police officers and at least one inspector and a superintendent entered his residence and took him away, in an incident that he filmed live and which went viral online.

Portelli has been making accusations to the effect that the Prime Minister had lied about Egrant, the third Panamanian company opened in tandem with those belonging to Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.

In the video, Portelli claims that the heavy police presence at his residence had not even included a doctor or a psychiatrist even although the orders were to bring him in for psychological treatment at Mount Carmel.

On Facebook, yesterday morning, Partit Demokratiku MP Marlene Farrugia reported that she had received a telephone call from Portelli, currently committed at the psychiatric hospital, asking her to put him in touch with leading criminal lawyer Edward Gatt. “Mario was subsequently cut off midstream while telling me that they were snatching away his phone,” Farrugia said.

A little later in the day, Farrugia said that she intended visiting Portelli at Mount Carmel yesterday afternoon along with PD leader Godfrey Farrugia, a medical doctor.

She appealed to the Commissioner of Mental Disorders, Dr John Cachia, “to closely scrutinise the handling and care of Mario Portelli”.

PD added in a press statement: “Without going into the merits of what Mario Portelli is stating, Partit Demokratiku notes that it is the medical profession that decides what type of care a patient with a mental disorder requires.

“If a citizen slanders anyone, redress can be sought by means of in- stituting a libel case, and if the citizen makes allegations of criminal misconduct and is prepared to provide evidence, then the police are duty bound to investigate. Is this happening in this case?” the PD asked.

Portelli was taken to Mount Carmel on Friday, just hours after he had posted another video of him accusing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of lying under oath in the Egrant case, after he had also threatened to confront the Prime Minister tomorrow about his ‘Egrant lies’.

“The police have turned up at my door and they are saying I am crazy. Joseph Muscat is sending the police to take me away to a mental hospital so that I will not be able to expose his lies to the public on Sunday. There is no doctor present here… this is a fascist and dangerous State,” he said in the live video before his telephone was removed.

Portelli – former PC 99 – had been the star witness in the trial against former Police Inspector David Gatt, now a lawyer, who was accused of being involved in the failed heist of HSBC’s Operations Centre in Qormi. Gatt had been cleared of any involvement after Portelli, the main witness against him, was discredited on mental health grounds.