Joseph Muscat’s house has been raided by the police and his phones have been taken away. He says he was “half surprised”, which means he had been tipped off and had been expecting this. He wasn’t surprised at all. He still has friends on the inside to tip him off. One can only hope that he didn’t have enough time to destroy all the evidence.
Joseph Muscat was prepared for this and if he was prepared for this the police will probably only have found what he wanted them to find.
But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the story.
This inquiry was started by Repubblika in 2018. The crooks thought it was over when they appealed to Judge Giovanni Grixti who threw a lower court’s decision to start the inquiry. Repubblika persevered. The inquiry happened anyway.
Here we are now. The magistrate must have enough evidence to suspect that there could have been something in Joseph Muscat’s house that could be useful evidence in the prosecution of a crime. She would not have given the order for the search lightly. However zealous for the truth she might be, no one would want to face Joseph Muscat’s claim that someone was out to humiliate him.
There is humiliation here. And it comes from the fact that though he didn’t think so, crime does not pay, not for ever, not for long, even if committed by a prime minister.
Joseph Muscat denies any wrongdoing “totally”. He’s innocent until proven guilty and all that and we haven’t heard he’s being charged with anything yet.
This is a search in his house. That’s all it is. It’s a lot.
Someone, at last, may be putting a stop to this charade and showing Joseph Muscat the door. From the outside in.