Accepting Robert Abela’s behaviour in his profession is unacceptable. There’s a line that Joseph Muscat, apparently without irony, had a habit of echoing: “those who do not fight corruption are corrupt”.
I regret he is right. Which means that Labour Party MPs, the party leadership, party employees, and all those (likely a considerable majority of the country) who will vote the Labour Party in a few weeks’ time, who are ignoring the reports in Times of Malta about Robert Abela’s dealings with alleged crime lord Christian Borg, are corrupt. They are endorsing by their actions or their failure to act not just money laundering and tax evasion, which is bad enough. They are also relieving every citizen, even those who would become prime minister, of the primary moral responsibility not to cooperate with criminals.
Read Times of Malta’s report of today of the second case of a property flip from which Robert Abela made instant profit on land that belonged to Christian Borg, the man suspected of racketeering alongside violent crimes. In another post I explained how property swindles like this are used to dodge tax and to allow lawyers to be handsomely paid by criminals with money they should not have because they stole it from or made it on the back of their victims.
There’s something grotesquely callous that Robert Abela told Times of Malta when they asked him why it never occurred to him to ask where Christian Borg got all the money for all those properties at his age. Robert Abela argued that it was the notary’s job, not his, to ensure funds used by Borg for the deal were clean.
This sophistry can be expected from a criminal in the dock. We don’t accept it from a restaurant waiter who insists we must wait for another waiter because it’s not their job to take orders for drinks. Let alone from a lawyer who is professionally and ethically bound to uphold the law, and legally bound (like the rest of us) not to receive stolen goods or accept payment with stolen money. Let alone from a prime minister.
No one expects Robert Abela to feel even the slightest embarrassment by these revelations. Any disciple of Joseph Muscat has earned the right to expect immunity from consequence for their wrongdoing.
Even if Times of Malta’s revelations will likely change no one’s view on who should be prime minister in four weeks’ time, this is wrong and utterly unacceptable. It is a further indictment of our collective morality, and our behaviour as a society. It is indicative of the extent of the power and influence of criminals who have prime ministers (or even future prime ministers) working for them and enabling their crimes.
This, the silence that follows a report like this morning’s, the omertà of indifferent shrugging if not outright admiration of the wise guy who didn’t have to work for his millions even on weekends … this is why Malta is a Mafia State. This is why Robert Abela is Malta’s prime minister.