It is believed that Police Inspector Gabriel Micallef will not be arraigned in court and charged over any role he may have played in the immediate wake of the incident involving the driver of former minister Manuel Mallia on 19 November.

This is spite of the fact that the board of inquiry report published on Monday night found that Inspector Gabriel Micallef had been involved in the attempt by the police to cover up at least certain aspects of the incident. The decision was taken before the removal of acting Ray Zammit from his post as acting police commissioner.

Sources speaking with this newspaper have confirmed that it is the Office of the Attorney General that is of the belief that Inspector Micallef had not committed suppression, destruction or alteration of traces of crime according to Article 111(2) of the criminal code.

Inspector Micallef had been arrested and, after interrogation, was placed on bail and on forced leave as per standard procedure.

Inspector Micallef had been implicated by the board of inquiry as the person who moved Stephen Smith's bullet punctured car onto a low-loader at the crime scene in the Regional Road tunnel, before the magistrate tasked with the inquiry had arrived on the scene. The inquiry said that Inspector Micallef had not been authorised to have done so.

The board had pointed fingers at those near Sheehan - it is also understood that Inspector Micallef's sister is the partner of police officer cum ministerial driver Paul Sheehan - had attempted to minimise the situation and the driver's actions so as to make it seem that the shots fired by Sheehan had, in actual fact, been warning shots.  The board, however, refrained from commenting further on Inspector Micallef since he is subject to a police investigation on the tampering of evidence.

He was also implicated in an attempt to confiscate an eyewitness' mobile phone footage of Sheehan's shooting incident.   According to the witnesses, a mother and a daughter, they were approached by an unidentified man who asked them to hand over footage of the argument between Sheehan and Smith.  

Inspector Micallef was included in a line-up of police officers suspected of tampering with evidence but eyewitnesses were unable to positively identify the man who approached them, and picked out two individuals from the line-up.