There’s little to add to Repubblika’s reaction to Joe Giglio’s remarks on radio today. There he was dismissing “NGOs” with that tone of slimy sarcasm and aloof superiority courtroom litigators hone in, the same tone his colleague once used to speak of the disposal of a “biċċa blogger”. These people step into politics late in [...]
Today the government announced the appointment of a new ‘Independent Police Complaints Board’. You’d be forgiven for not knowing it existed before the shocking scandal of how the police allowed Joseph Muscat’s buddy Iosif Galea to go on holiday with the former prime minister despite an outstanding European Arrest Warrant issued against him by the [...]
Saying this won’t make much difference, but that’s never been a reason for me not to say something. We need to stand by our public officials and elected representatives when they are assaulted, especially when they’re assaulted just for doing their job. John Pillow, the Mayor of Sliema, was assaulted and injured by a bunch [...]
Malta Today columnist Raphael Vassallo has been awarded today €1,000 in damages after an article that appeared on this website made reference to his writings. Raphael Vassallo sued me and lost the case in the lower court presided by Magistrate Rachel Montebello. Judge Lawrence Mintoff this morning revoked the lower court's decision. In his judgement, [...]
The following is an English translation of Robert Aquilina's speech outside police headquarters on Wednesday. A year and three months ago – together with my fellow members – I entered the Police Headquarters for a meeting with Commissioner Angelo Gafà and the Deputy Commissioner Alexandra Mamo. On that occasion, the two officials had been occupying [...]
Manuel Delia · Two Years Is Enough You could say we waited a long time before we said out loud that Angelo Gafà needed to resign as police chief. I think that would be fair criticism. When months and months went by and still no action was taken against people exposed by scandals from years [...]
Malta Today published a photo they found on Facebook of one of the alleged second-hand car racketeers in an embrace with Robert Abela in the prime minister’s studio in Castille. It turns out Robert Abela used to be this guy’s lawyer. Robert Abela also used to be the lawyer of another alleged scammer regulated by [...]
Read Malta Today’s editorial that says that the issue of second-hand cars with manipulated odometers goes beyond the fraud perpetrated by the people selling the cars. There are ways to avoid the fraud and public officials have a role in doing that when conducting checks in port and again when an imported second-hand vehicle is [...]
Pope Francis’s speech to Maltese “dignitaries” earlier this year was famously censored by the national broadcaster who ignored the pontiff’s pointed remarks about the moral duty to fight corruption. May your commitment to eliminate illegality and corruption be strong, like the north wind that sweeps the coasts of this country. May you always [...]
An analysis by international NGO Global Witness and seen by UK newspaper The Independent, shows that shipowners flying EU flags of Malta, Cyprus and Greece, are making more money carrying Russian crude oil since the EU started its attempt to punish Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. The exceptions negotiated so far by Europe’s [...]
Read this story on The Shift News. The website is reporting that Christian Borg who has been charged with kidnapping and is being investigated for using his car dealership as a money laundering racket has filed the cheapest offer for a tender issued by the government for leased cars for the personal use of judges, [...]
Inveterate tree-chopping Ian Borg posted on his Facebook wall his meeting with possibly the worst democratically elected head of state in the world right now, Jair Bolsonaro. There were a lot of quips about how Ian Borg must have flaunted his tree-destroying record with Bolsonaro who has made it easier for loggers to eat into [...]
From my article in the The Sunday Times today: "Political elites have a stake in convincing themselves and everyone else that the situation has improved and this is no longer a den of thieves but a modern country. Their motivation is perhaps the most obvious. Towards the end of 2019, Malta’s political class came close to [...]
Working conditions in the Rabat, Gozo court building are notoriously uncomfortable. Lawyers working there have gone on strike over cramped and humid conditions in an old building inside the Ċitadella wholly unsuitable for the purpose it serves. The centuries old building has not been modernised and only a major infrastructural overhaul that would require the [...]
One of the two unions representing police officers has warned it will not accept the findings of any inquiry into how Iosif Galea was allowed to travel while a European Arrest Warrant against him was in place, unless that inquiry was properly independent. The union said the matter would likely have an impact on some [...]
Victoria Buttigieg has security of tenure protected by the Constitution. This means that except for very exceptional reasons and on the back of cross-party Parliamentary consensus, no one can ever fire her. This is meant to ensure she acts independently of pressures from people who would otherwise be able to threaten her income or her [...]
This is not a website where you come for happy reading. It’s almost always dark, critical, sometimes even flirting with being cynical. So, here’s an exception. Yesterday the government produced a candidate to run the Planning Authority, a den of iniquity if ever there was one. He was grilled by Opposition MPs Karol Aquilina and [...]
In a statement issued this morning the Malta Police Union called for Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg to resign after the botched plea deal with Darren Debono, known as it-Topo, who had two charges for attempting to kill police officers withdrawn in exchange of evidence he did not give. Darren Debono is currently appealing a 10-year [...]
The police have told Times of Malta that the “investigation” into how Iosif Galea was allowed to travel out of Malta with Joseph Muscat despite a German arrest warrant they knew about for months would be “independent” and headed by a “retired judge”. That looks good. It’s meant to. It’s meant to rebuff the suggestion [...]
Angelo Gafà’s gong from the French and Alexandra Mamo’s medal, ostensibly for bravery, from the Americans, must have some reason in someone’s book but it’s nothing anyone out here can see. Some other republic should give a medal to Victoria Buttigieg so we can complete a set of mysteriously decorated inadequates. We keep getting stories [...]