One of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s lines that keeps coming to mind is the one when she said you will corruption everywhere, in every country at every level. What’s specifically Maltese is that here “the attitude to corruption is corrupt”. You can draw a straight line from that attitude to the Maltese attitude to civil liberties. [...]
The Indian Finance Ministry is starting the first prosecutions against Indians found to have set up off-shore companies undeclared to the Indian tax authorities discovered by the Paradise Papers. The November 2017 leaks by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists discovered companies incorporated in several jurisdictions including Malta. The Indian Express has reported that a [...]
A few days ago I wrote about a decision by Consuelo Scerri Herrera who is now the last word on cases appealed by people convicted by lower courts. That article was about the case of Charles Le Brun acquitted on appeal for pocketing VAT collected from his customers on the basis of a technicality, not even [...]
It’s a cliche of WWII movies. But in those two words — ‘Papers Please’ — is the power of the State to disrespect individuals, interrogate them not on the basis of a reasonable suspicion because of any of their actions but for being there and looking the way they do, invade their privacy, humiliate them, [...]
Reading the Times of Malta coverage (see below) of the conference organised by bankers and finserv intermediaries yesterday really made my blood boil. It’s perhaps why I can never work the beat and cover these events sitting quietly in the back taking notes. There’s the classic line of Edward Scicluna who may know a thing [...]
Read this interview with Joseph Muscat on Politico. At first, you might think it’s a narrow tactical debate for the European Socialists in which Joseph Muscat butts with a centrist, perhaps slightly right of centre inclusive strategy. The context is quite straightforward. Socialists in Europe are trailing in many countries and they are losing the [...]
Note: An earlier version of this story reported that MFF is part of the Elbros Group. This is incorrect. Saviour Ellul has separated from the Elbros Group before the occurrences described in this report. A follow-up report in Spanish investigative journalism website El Confidencial points the fingers at MFF Ltd, a part of Saviour Ellul’s [...]
I find it particularly disturbing that the PN and its media continue to ignore the fate of Mario Portelli. I can understand the hesitation and pause to collect the facts. Not everyone knows the laws regulating involuntary committal of people off hand though of course, it would have taken the PN the same time to [...]
It's not just that Joseph Muscat was letting his hair, such as it is, down. That video of a debauched circle jerk which I uploaded earlier was filmed inside the chapel of the Girgenti Palace, the official summer residence of the Prime Minister intended for formal state occasions. Michelle Muscat, who redefines the meaning of [...]
Abandon hope all ye who enter here
Mario Portelli, chief witness in the trial that acquitted David Gatt in an organised crime trial two years ago, has uploaded a video on his Facebook profile earlier today that appears to show him being arrested by the police to be committed to the mental institution. https://www.facebook.com/jack.bristow.507/videos/2484721218266560/ In his video, Mario Portelli claims that the [...]
Listen to this brilliant half hour of comedy at Malta's expense. Mark Steele's BBC series of send-ups of towns and cities made a stop in Malta for its broadcast yesterday. Brilliantly done and will be nice to watch the squirming of xenophobes like the Alfred Sants of this country, that speak of "foreigners" as if [...]
Three years ago today Daphne Caruana Galizia published this post. It was just a curtain raiser but it would start the series on Panamagate. The lamb refers to the New Zealand trust he set up ostensibly to "populate it with his family assets". He went all the way around the world to hide the ownership [...]
The case of a businessman who collected almost €90,000 of VAT and pocketed it instead of passing it to the taxman is another shocking indicator of the collapse our law enforcement and justice system. Judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera has this week let the gentleman concerned, Charles Le Brun, walk away free and keep the money [...]
Sent in by Pandora under the post President Coleiro, you're not the King of Thailand: And yet every morning Malta wakes up and keeps going on in spite of the failure of all its institutions. From Christmas to carnival to Easter, summer holidays and village festas, back again to Christmas it has become just [...]
Faced by the scandal of corruption and international money laundering another institution fails us. The behaviour of Marie Louise Coleiro after the video of her saying there was “no legal proof” of what Pilatus Bank was up to was uploaded by the Oxford Union, is a stark warning to those who think they can solve [...]
If the President of Malta doesn’t want to be criticised for her speeches, she should not deliver any. It is hard enough not to think of Marie Louise Coleiro Preca as just another agent of the Labour Party. Her remarks today about Pilatus Bank are not merely a disgrace to the office she occupies, I [...]
Did he tell her to her face about the hopeless state of the Parliament she's a member of?
The fact that Joseph Muscat adopts the diversionary tactics of Donald Trump (though in their case you really need to wonder who’s the chicken and who’s the egg) does not excuse him. In reality, if you step back to remember whom Joseph Muscat’s behaviour is reminding you of, that would be Dom Mintoff. It’s really [...]
Within minutes of becoming aware of the UK House of Commons committee report confirming that it had seen evidence that contradicts Malta’s official version of events, Malta’s government repeated its line that the charge it met SCL before the 2013 election is baseless. Of course, there’s a lot that is upside down in the government’s [...]