http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120505/letters/Black-night-in-bankhistory-1-.

418386 Saturday, May 5, 2012 by

Peter Dacoutros, Sliema

Black night in bank history (1)

I refer to the article [by Lino Spiteri] National Bank Group Saga featured in The Times Business Supplement of April 26 and to various other articles regarding the same matter appearing in The Times. I would like to state the true facts which concerned our family on that fateful December night of 1973 when my uncle, Peter Dacoutros, was forced to sign off his shares in the National Bank of Malta. Two policemen in uniform turned up at the door of my uncles residence in East Street, Valletta, and rang the doorbell at 10.40 p.m. My uncle went downstairs in his pyjamas and opened the door accompanied by his two terrified spinster sisters who lived with him. The three of them were in their late 70s at the time. One of the two policemen handed a document to my uncle and requested him to sign it. My uncle asked what the paper was all about and in return the policeman told him it was a document whereby he would be signing off his shares in the National Bank of Malta. My uncle had a quick look at the document and then told the policemen that as his brother, who happened to be my father, was a lawyer, he would consult with him immediately and the following morning he would go to the banks head office and see to the matter. One of the policemen told my uncle: Jekk inti matiffirmax dik il-karta issa, gada filgodu ma jkollokx galfejn tmur il-fabbrika galiex ma tkunx tiegek ijed. (If you do not sign that document now, tomorrow morning you will have no reason to go to the factory as it will not be yours anymore). My uncle Peter signed the document. Yes, signed under duress or as we commonly say, at gunpoint! Nobody in his right frame of mind would sign off his wealth unless he was forced to do so. I was a 22 year old man at the time. These facts are as clear in my mind as they were on the night it happened. Yes, because these facts are the undeniable truth. These facts I recounted in court when I was asked to give testimony on October 28, 2010. A distortion of these facts by anybody directly or indirectly involved in engineering the takeover of The National Bank of Malta would be acting like the proverbial throwing the stone and then hiding his hand. It would be a devious mind acting out of shame and guilt for ones wrongdoing. Where there is guilt there is crime. Yes, the takeover of The National Bank of Malta was a heinous crime, an ongoing cancerous tumour in the banking system of our Malta.