PL demands apology over 18,000 fake IDs claim

The Labour Party has demanded an apology from the shadow minister for home affairs after court testimony on Tuesday that only seven fake residence permits were discovered during an investigation into abuse and irregularities.

Claudio Spiteri, the former Chief Head of Compliance at Identità, told a court that while there was talk of “thousands” of fake residence permits having been issued, only seven such fake documents were found.  He was testifying in proceedings against a man and a woman accused of submitting fake documents.  

The PL said in a statement on Tuesday that the Nationalist Party had spoken of 18,000 false identity cards having been issued and had called protests and demanded resignations.  

"The irony is that the same Nationalist MPs who spent the past months repeating what now results to be unfounded allegations, including Bernard Grech and Home Affairs spokesman Darren Carabott, have now gone silent, even though they knew for a long time that their allegations were unfounded," the PL said.

"It is a pity that even new PN MPs, as is Darren Carabott, were more interested in media exposure rather than seeking the truth. If Darren Carabott was and is so incompetent in his role as an opposition spokesperson, just imagine him as a cabinet minister," the party added. 

"The least that Darren Carabott could do is to apologise to the hundreds of workers at Identita and to the people."