Since then, they have had some time to go through most of the garbage bags into which their worldly possessions had been stuffed. “We lost some of our things. We are still trying to find some things. They weren’t even packed in our bags, but in polythene bags,” said James. 

“Last week, my friend was complaining that he lost his phone, he lost his money. I personally lost my wristwatch, my iPhone, and some money.” 

James added that he their search was ongoing, as they were still working everyday and hadn’t had time to look through everything which their landlord had packed – in what has to be considered a criminal violation of their privacy.

“I cannot confirm that we lost everything, as we are still searching. For now, we’ve lost quite a lot, we’ve lost money, watches, and electronics. And my other friend has not been able to confirm whether he has seen his passport or not. We’re hoping that he will find it in one of the bags, but who knows.”

While James arrived in Malta fairly recently, to this rather horrific welcome, Gregory has been in Gozo for three years. “We had a good relationship with the landlord, we had no problems,” he told us. 

“He usually came for the rent every few months. Sometimes two months, sometimes three or four months. Before last week there were no problems.”

Problems arose when their landlord was allegedly willing to stoop to criminal lows to kick out long term tenants and bring in some new ones – possibly because rental prices in Gozo have been on the rise – and he could make more money quickly by doing something as simple and free of consequence as breaking the law. 

“I had not realised,” said Patricia Graham, “how much Gozo rental prices have gone through the roof. Gozo was always the place you could rent a farmhouse for €500 a month. Now most people I’m contacting are listing €800, €900, €1,200 for the same places.”

When asked if she believed that the landlord had evicted these people to make more money from new tenants, she answered: “I suspect so. This landlord seems like a very strange chap. He had a bad habit of collecting rent every two months, every three months, four months, and then collect it in bulk.” 

She continued: “On Saturday, he turned up with the new tenants. The place hadn’t been cleaned, the old tenants were still there, all their things were there in plastic bags. If I were the new tenant I would have run for the hills”.

Although the three evicted men have thankfully been able to get help to find temporary, and now permanent accommodation, their illegal eviction should have been blocked by the police immediately. 

“The simple solution is that when a tenant calls the police and says ‘I am being evicted’ – the police speak to the landlord and ask ‘do you have a court order to evict these tenants?'” said Graham.

She continued: “When the landlord says ’no’ – that’s the cue for police to tell the tenants to get back into their apartment. Get a court order, and then you can evict a tenant. It’s so simple. The police know that.”

Apparently, this wasn’t a simple matter to the police. Graham told Lovin Malta that last week, “the police did nothing about it”. 

Graham says she has spoken to the assistant and deputy Police Commissioners – who have always been knowledgeable and approachable to her – and asked “why are your officers not trained in regard to this right? It is a criminal offence for them to take the law into their own hands and evict these tenants. It has to be treated as a criminal offence.”

She also told Lovin Malta that police had claimed this was a “civil case”.

“This is a criminal case. It’s as bad as going into a shop and robbing the till. If somebody went into a shop and robbed the till, you wouldn’t tell them to go home while you file a report, before speaking to them in a few weeks. It would be handled immediately. This is no different.”

She also added that when she had asked an officer to reverse the eviction on Saturday, James had stopped her. “He immediately asked me, ‘how can we destroy the new tenants who moved into our property, by saying ‘get out we’re coming back in’?” Graham was stunned. 

“How he could think like that, under his circumstances, is totally beyond me.”

In a post to social media asking for help, one of the men described his belief that “this can never happen to a white person”.

When Lovin Malta asked Gregory if he thought this incident was racially motivated he replied: “I don’t know how to define this. Prior to this we didn’t have any issues with the landlord. I don’t know how to define this incident. I don’t want to give a name to it, I don’t want to be unfair, you know?”

This case is yet another in a long line of incidents in which people who do not originate from Malta or Europe have fallen victim to criminal abuse, and authorities have done nothing to help.

Malta is consistently sending clear messages about who is, and who isn’t, privileged enough to be protected by legal precedents over the past few years. Under these circumstances, it is of paramount importance that we know our rights – and know to push back against anyone attempting to violate them.

“What I desperately, desperately need, is that people know that evictions can only take place under court order,” Graham told Lovin Malta. “You would be taking at least a hundred emails and messages off my desk for a month. This illegal evictions have got to stop.”

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