Gibraltar’s chief minister found to have interfered in police case

The chief minister of Gibraltarmadea series of “grossly improper” and “sinister” interventions ina live criminal investigation in order to protect his friend, mentor and business partner from the consequences of a search warrant, a public inquiry has found.

- Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent

The inquiry chair, the retired England and Wales high court judge Sir Peter Openshaw, concluded that Fabian Picardo acted to protect James Levy KC when police went with a search warrant to Hassans law firm, where Levy was a senior partner.

The warrant relating to Levy concerned an investigation into an alleged plot to steal a state security contract. He was never charged.

Openshaw said that while the Royal Gibraltar police (RGP) officers were at Hassans, Picardo summoned the commissioner of police, Ian McGrail, and “berated” himina “towering rage” in “a grossly improper attempt to interfere in a legitimate police investigation and operation”.

McGrail retired a month after the May 2020 incident and the inquiry aimed to establish whether he was forced out.