The prime minister’s remarks yesterday about the Daphne inquiry being an “experiment” he all but rules as failed show that his decision some weeks ago to impose a 15 December deadline on the process was a deliberate act intended to suffocate the inquiry. It also shows that the intention comes from his unhappiness with what [...]
This week, the Deputy Prime Minister of Joseph Muscat and the Deputy Prime Minister of Robert Abela, Chris Fearne, is testifying at the inquiry looking into the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia. He's testifying three years after the murder. Two months after the murder, in December of 2017, he had firmly held views. They were [...]
Sent in by someone known to me. Prior to closing with the enemy off Cape Trafalgar in 1805, Admiral Nelson sent his famous signal. ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’. Over 150 years later, in his inauguration speech President John F. Kennedy uttered his inspirational ‘Ask not what your country can do [...]
From my article in today's The Sunday Times: "At least, while they await trial, the Degiorgios live in prison. But the Fenechs, the Apap Bolognas and the Gasans continue to cash in on the Electrogas deal every day, their conscience undisturbed, their luxury yachts purring, their Pacific island bank accounts bubbling gently, their hold on [...]
I'm square. I never tried a joint. Not like Adrian Delia never. Properly never. All I need is another vice, but with all that's going on in this country I don't blame the Labour youth branch to make a plea for a little laughing grass. I'm sure Joseph Muscat would look innocent walking out of [...]
US Financial Crime blogger Kenneth Rijock reported today that 3 senior government officials including two ministers are speaking to US and other authorities about what they know of bribery and money laundering. He calls them the Valletta 3. I spoke to him earlier today and asked him what colleagues of the Valletta 3 should be [...]
This is not a spoof. This pathetic, grasping, self-pitying, own-voice-loving excuse for a man is literally mourning the fact his is not the only voice worth listening to on radio. I had to screen-shoot his Facebook post before someone with some sanity left in them tells him this makes him look like Harry Potter's cousin [...]
We should all be grateful to the Electrogas directors for informing us of their internal inquiry that found no corruption in the deal for which their company exists. It’s nice that they looked into the matter and it’s nice they told us about it. Now, if they don’t mind very much, they can fuck back [...]
The casual way with which I referred to Christian Grima and Simon Mercieca in the same sentence without contrasting the two and what they are doing was flippant and inexcusable. I apologise to Christian Grima for allowing that fact to suggest that the sins of the latter could be visited on the former. I also [...]
There is something which does not make even an ounce of sense in what Louis Grech told the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry today. Here’s an extended quote from Malta Today’s court report: “Asked about the Panama Papers revelations that emerged in 2016, Grech said this was “a setback” for the government that had achieved so [...]
In the post linked here I explained how I've been trying since last November to visit the prisons and other detention facilities in Malta to verify directly the veracity of persistent reports of overcrowding, inhuman conditions, torture and degrading treatment. In this post I described just how limited the visit I was allowed to make [...]
Louis Grech described the Panama Papers as a "setback" for the Labour government this morning. MaltaToday's court reporter quotes Louis Grech saying: "We had implemented so much of our manifesto and achieved civil rights. There was a lot of good. One should not be defined only by the bad aspects, but also by the good. [...]
Updated at 15:17 Includes reaction by Christian Grima. It’s reasonable for Yorgen Fenech to protest his innocence. It would be surprising if he didn’t. The attitude that wealth justifies everything that we heard on the recordings of him taped secretly by his accomplice Melvyn Theuma does not just go away, even when facing the prospect of [...]
Manuel Delia · Malta's Double Dealings Robert Abela stood with the heads of government of 6 other southern EU countries yesterday after a meeting in Corsica that was supposed to show a common front. As expected, Robert Abela underlined the challenge of migratory flows. He rightly remarked that it was not practical to develop policy [...]
Alfred Sant's article in The Malta Independent today is split in three. The third part is interesting. Fascinating. Here it is: HOGAN’S STORY The resignation of Phil Hogan as EU Trade Commissioner from Ireland was hardly noticed in Malta. One wonders why... Hogan was one of the Commissioners most in view and was considered as [...]
The economy ministry has just written to 69 former Air Malta pilots, made redundant a few weeks ago, to inform them the government would honour a promise made to them by former Minister Konrad Mizzi that if they were to be made redundant the government would still continue to pay them their big pilot pay [...]
Lawrence Cutajar is testifying this morning at the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry. He's been reminded of his former Deputy Police Chief, Silvio Valletta and Valletta's blatant conflict of interest as head of the investigation into Daphne's killing whilst being married to a minister in Joseph Muscat's government. Lawrence Cutajar is reminded that Daphne's family had [...]
Victoria Buttigieg was the State Advocate. She applied to become the Attorney General. This is not a promotion. The two positions carry the same salary. They have the same level of security of tenure. The positions both carry identical constitutional prestige. By any standard this is a lateral career move. Except the job Victoria Buttigieg [...]
In his interview with me yesterday, US financial crime blogger Kenneth Rijock said his sources tell him the United States is conducting an ongoing investigation into criminal activities connected to the sale of passports by Malta. At that interview (listen to it here if you haven’t already), I asked Kenneth Rijock to clarify how a [...]
I think that the brief exchange between Victoria Buttigieg, at the time deputy attorney general, and lawyers for Electrogas published yesterday by Matthew Caruana Galizia deserves further reflection. The exchange comes out of the leak of Electrogas emails that was sent to Daphne Caruana Galizia a little before she was killed. She was killed, it [...]