I shelter no one
The prime minister wanted to sound categorical when he said he'll protect no criminals just because their arrest might cause him embarrassment. He was asked if he would be the one to handle a request for immunity from someone willing to testify he was wrong about Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi all along, and Daphne [...]
Sicilian prosecutors want to know where Yorgen Fenech is staying so they can charge him with match-fixing and illegal betting
La Sicilia reports that Yorgen Fenech “is not entirely unknown” to Italian authorities. “Quite the contrary”. He was wanted by the mobile squad of Catania’s anti-crime section that has investigated him for some time for match fixing and illegal betting on football matches. The investigation code named “treni del gol” has led to initial criminal [...]
Denial of Service attack on manueldelia.com
Our technical team has noticed increased activity of bots that suggest the beginnings of a coherent denial of service (DDOS) attack. You may have experienced occasional downtime when this was happening today. We have decided therefore to increase precautions to try to protect the website from a full-scale DDOS attack that could cause the website [...]
There’s only one thing you can call it
That's the stage facing the Auberge de Castille. Join us tonight.
Chetcuti Cauchi appeal denied. Inquiry into trading in influence to go ahead.
Jean Philippe Chetcuti has lost his appeal to the criminal court to have a magistrate’s order for a criminal inquiry into his conduct quashed. The order for the inquiry followed an application filed by Repubblika in a complaint after Jean Philippe Chetcuti was seen bragging in a TV documentary on French TV that his close [...]
UPDATED: Portable shredders at Portomaso
Updated Saturday, 23 November 2019 12:12 Someone who identified himself as a spokesman for the firm that operates these mobile shredders called me to clarify they had been pre-booked for the job before Yorgen Fenech's arrest and the job was at the Hilton Hotel which is part of the Portomaso Complex. Mobile industrial scale paper [...]
Caruana Galizia family says investigation should be free from political interference
Statement by the family: The arrest of Yorgen Fenech is an important and overdue development in the investigation into our wife and mother’s assassination. As investigators now turn to Fenech’s corrupt links with the Maltese Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and cabinet minister Konrad Mizzi, we are dismayed to see the Prime Minister [...]
Has Yorgen Fenech asked for immunity to turn state’s evidence?
In his comments to the press this morning the prime minister let slip he was referring to Melvyn Theuma's request for immunity as "l-ewwel proklama", the first proclamation. He immediately retracted it and said he meant "l-unika proklama", the only plea deal he was being asked to recommend. Joseph Muscat is clearly not getting much [...]
FIAU asks Maltese businesses to report if they’ve ever done business with Yorgen Fenech
A circular sent this morning to financial service operators by the FIAU gives a three day deadline for information to be filed whether they have at present or had in the past any business relationship with Yorgen Fenech or a host of companies he was or is involved in. The request was sent out by [...]
Coalition of the willing
Come join us tonight. We're meeting outside Castille at 18:30. Mario Vella (not the governor of the Central Bank who studied in communist East Germany but protects the broken corporatism of today) but the real leftie with his heart firmly in the right place, the unsurpassable poet and inimitable political musician has just announced on [...]
Is that guy smiling?
If you've seen Joker you'll know it's perfectly possible to have involuntary laughter. In a film based on graphic novels. To be fair, it's far. But is he smiling? Does he think something's funny now?
Council of Europe rapporteur “concerned”: Shouldn’t the PM keep his distance?
The blatant conflict of interest of Joseph Muscat presenting himself as chief investigator of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and of taking alone decisions on presidential pardons that could infect his own cabinet was raised today in a tweet by Pieter Omtzigt who reports to the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly on the rule [...]
Let’s take a hypothetical scenario, shall we?
Yorgen Fenech admits to his involvement in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia but he offers to become what the Italians would call a pentito eccellente, a Tommaso Buscetta for our time. Out of fear of a lifetime in prison, or out of fear that his lifetime in fear could be cut short, or out [...]
Yorgen Fenech re-arrested. Interrogation to continue this morning.
This website is informed that Yorgen Fenech has been arrested again by the police and his interrogation will continue this morning. This website is also informed that there have been no other arrests during the night as reported in other news media. Speculation around the case is reaching fever pitch especially given the lack of [...]
You want to see what a damaged car looks like?
Remember when Joseph Muscat reacted to the first protest action by the women of Occupy Justice? They pitched tents outside his office in Castille and slept rough for a few nights. It wasn’t exactly the storming of the Bastille. There were no barbecued entrails and heads on spikes. But Labour went all mediaeval starting with [...]
Demanding the impossible
A London correspondent for an Italian newspaper spoke to me last night after she read Yorgen Fenech was released without charge. ‘Your country is officially crazier than mine. Both of them.’ Yeah. The mastermind behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia was the most wanted man in the history of crime in Malta. The world [...]
Yorgen Fenech released without charge
Before the 48 hour deadline for the police to release or charge Yorgen Fenech after his spectacular arrest out at sea aboard his yacht Gio, the owner of 17 Black suspected of being the mastermind behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia has been released by the police without charge. The police have said they [...]
Vacancies filled
We suspected there were vacancies at the police chief’s and the attorney general’s offices for some time. The prime minister has now filled them. Both. With himself. The daily statements given by the prime minister these last three days are profoundly disturbing. The prime minister is providing details of what persons being interrogated have or [...]