US News Magazine The Atlantic published a detailed report on the aftermath of the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia remarking that “the murder of a journalist in Europe, at a time when democratic institutions face severe tests worldwide, risk making Malta the weak point that could threaten the entire bloc”.
The enormous ramifications of this occurrence appear obvious to a Magazine out of Boston, Massachusetts but remains an annoying footnote to our government and its loyalists who are more bothered with chipped polystyrene tails and flowers at the foot of memorials than with our democracy crashing around our ears.
The author of the detailed report observes that the Council of Europe is for the first time ever considering appointing a special rapporteur to look into criminal investigations of a Member State of the European Union. The only other two times this level of scrutiny was invoked were both in Russia: “for the investigation into the 2015 murder of Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader, and into the 2009 death in pre-trial detention of Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor who had discovered what he said was fraud by Russian officials”.
It now feels that those warnings of “taħt il-Labour, tistħi li int Malti” and “gass down ġol-ħajt” were made by people whose worst nightmares cannot have foreseen this.
Take the time to read The Atlantic’s detailed story here. My feeling is Owen Bonnici and Etienne Grech will not be framing a printout for their study.