Death inquiry to be reopened again

For the second time this year the Police Commissioner has requested the Attorney General to reopen the 2008 magisterial inquiry into the death of a man who died in police custody after fresh allegations resurfaced in the past weeks. AG Peter Grech confirmed Police Commissioner John Rizzo had last week asked for the inquiry to be referred back to Magistrate Anthony Vella to “examine whether persistent allegations about the alleged doctoring of CCTV footage are justified”. “I think this is the reasonable thing to do in such circumstances,” Dr Grech told The Sunday Times when contacted. This decision comes just two months after Magistrate Vella, who was asked to reopen the inquiry into Nicholas Azzopardi’s death last March, concluded his investigation, which failed to unearth any evidence of wrongdoing. The 2008 inquiry had concluded that if all the evidence submitted by the police were discarded, all the other evidence – together with the documents exhibited and the facts – corroborated the police’s version of the incident. Magistrate Vella once again established that Mr Azzopardi was never assaulted by police and that the wounds he sustained were compatible with a fall from...