I apologise upfront for insisting on speaking on my home turf. I do not enter into debates on Facebook. The ganging up, the shouting matches replete with whataboutisms, non sequiturs, straw men and twisted logic remind me of the school yard. Which I avoided as a child and which I will avoid now. I did [...]
In his effort to keep Labour on side, Keith Schembri announced hours before his arrest that a magisterial inquiry found no proof that payments he received from Brian Tonna at Pilatus Bank amounted to kickbacks on the back of the sale of passports. Today the police testified in court that the magistrate had not found [...]
The software that tries to protect this website when it is attacked has just raised a yellow alert. Truth Be Told is currently being bombarded with a denial of service (DDOS) attack. The assault is increasing exponentially and at any time I fully expect to be taken off-line. In the meantime, visitors to the website [...]
It is no exaggeration to say that the most important cases pending in court at this time, by many miles, are those relating to the brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. So much so that it doesn’t really need saying, except for the fact that it does. Follow my thinking here. The trigger-men, one of [...]
From testimony heard in court this morning we learnt that after his arrest earlier this month, Brian Tonna was stripped of his warrant to practice his profession as an accountant. The warrant is governed by the accountancy board. The board is appointed by the government. The fact that with all that was in the [...]
There was Alex Agius Saliba today, haranguing the European Parliament for daring to criticise Malta for pervasive corruption. He told MEPs how “proud” he was. Ugh, that pointless verb used by the useless when describing their pointless role in something they have no influence on whatsoever. He was proud, he said, of the achievements of [...]
If you don’t feel shame watching MEPs queue in single file to indict Malta for supporting a government with blood on its hands, you have lost all residual belonging to this country. I’m not necessarily criticising you. I’m just telling you I haven’t caught up with you yet. And if I feel the shame, I [...]
It's tougher for women in politics. It's a man's world. Men persist in objectifying women. They judge them by appearance instead of the quality of their work. They speak about their looks, ranking them in ways that would relegate your average balding, pot-bellied hirsute oaf to oblivion. Women in politics have to push against the [...]
The Labour Party has already managed once before to protect and free a person charged for being a criminal mastermind on the back of compelling evidence that he ordered the assassination and political murder of someone he wanted out of the way. It was the attempted assassination of one of Keith Schembri’s predecessors, Richard Cachia [...]
About a year ago, Evarist Bartolo was skewered by Tim Sebastian. Watch it again like a delicious rerun of one of the later episodes of Breaking Bad. At that interview Evarist Bartolo admitted (not that he could avoid to) that between 2013 and 2019 he belonged to a corrupt government. That, as the interviewer put [...]
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In court this morning prosecutors asked the court to inform the financial services regulator that last Saturday they charged with money laundering companies authorised by the MFSA to provide financial services. The court approved and ordered that the MFSA is informed. Presumably one expects the MFSA to now, finally, withdraw their approval of these cowboys [...]
Matthew Pace is the guy on his knees, a position he may be avoiding at his present address. Some people say that when they see some action taken by our institutions it’s all an act to try to impress Moneyval. It may well be, but they’re terrible at it, aren’t they? Last Saturday [...]
Miriam Dalli’s whataboutism would make Joseph Muscat proud. Probably does. She recalled when she was a “journalist” “investigating” “corruption” under the PN but “nothing happened” and those calling for justice now “close an eye or two”. She was not a journalist, but a propagandist. Investigation requires some basis in reality. John Rizzo’s police force investigated, [...]
NGO Repubblika’s president Robert Aquilina told the European Parliament’s President David Sassoli today that “Malta’s struggle against the Mafia is a European fight” and urged the European Parliament “not to underestimate the continental scale of the challenge of organised crime.” “Mafia organisations exploit Europe’s freedoms to operate cross-border criminal activities whilst policing and law enforcement [...]
A court has reprimanded the police for filing a shoddy case against Anthony Debono, husband of former Gozo minister Giovanna Debono. It was the case that was supposed to be the test bed for the then new whistleblower protection law. In 2015, the government gave immunity to a contractor who was claiming money from the [...]
The desperate caterwauling from the hymn book used by the Labour Party to spin itself out of the problems created for it by the detention on remand of of Keith Schembri, one of its most prominent leaders of the years 2008-2019, says that the Allied Newspapers scandal about which he is charged happened when Lawrence [...]
Justyne Caruana is recovering in hospital after feeling unwell. Lovin' Malta reported she was admitted after an overdose of legal medication. Press reports spoke of major commotion at the education department after a dispute arose about the ongoing controversy of a contract the department gave to retired footballer Daniel Bogdanovic. The Minister is facing considerable backlash after [...]
Reuters's Stephen Grey has tweeted that Alfred and George Degiorgio have asked for a pardon to turn state’s evidence as well. Leak just into me from Malta : confirmed two men accused of planting bomb that killed journalist Daphne have also now asked for a pardon and immunity to testify what they know of involvement [...]
… is one Saviour Balzan does not have. He’s also missing the gifts of grace, self-awareness, compassion, competence and consistency. Come to think of it,the man is quite altogether lacking. He expresses shock that “right-leaning press and bloggers” should be, but aren’t, bashing Times of Malta right now, and contrasts this with what would have [...]