Three confessors and a hell of a lot of rubber johnnies
Jiena nemmen li Noel Arrigo huwa innocenti.
It looks like the former chief justice has devoted the last seven years to planning the details of how to get off. Let me clarify this: not get off with a woman but get off jail.
First we had one of his sons chucking totally irrelevant hogwash around the courtroom with touching tales of his father’s three confessors (“Oh grandma, what big sins you have!” said Little Red Riding Hood to the wolf), of how the two (father and son, not the confessors) travelled regularly to Britain on business, how they flew to Manchester and drove to London (like anyone gives a damn) and how those confessors would be visited en route, with sins dropped off along the way.
You should have heard the hilarity in the living-room as we speculated about the reason for the sheer extravagance of three confessors in a foreign land. Is it so that all the naughty sins aren’t dumped on just the one, we laughed, so that he can carry on looking good to all three, who get to know only part of the story?
The vision of Noel Arrigo driving from Manchester to London and frantically dumping his peccadillos on a selection of confessors along the way was just too much for me. I had to leave the room and bite a pillow to shut up.
But the funniest bit – no, I mean really – was the bit where he said “I don’t do these things” and then promptly went on to describe how his little friend Grech Sant visited him at the Durex condom distributorship offices – because that’s what the former chief justice does for a living: he sells rubber johnnies – and chucked an envelope of cash onto the table.
Noel ‘three confessors’ Arrigo then repeated how cross he was, how he doesn’t do these things. But he didn’t say the bit that would have ranked him as a decent chap with a clean conscience. He didn’t tell the court: “Yes, and I chucked it right back at him and told him to get out before I call the police.”
Oh no. Instead Arrigo, still very cross and still, presumably, with three confessors, stormed about his office in a state of high dudgeon – or so he tells us this week. He was so cross about having been given money that he went out and began spending it. He spent some of it, he said, at a pharmacy nearby, but he didn’t tell us what he bought.
It certainly wasn’t condoms, because he’s got enough of those already. In fact, he has even more condoms than he has confessors.
The chief justice was so cross at the drug-money that he considered giving it to charity. But only for about five minutes. He was worried, he said, that the notes were false and then the nuns would say, “Ara x’taghna l-imhallef: flus foloz!”.
He didn’t have similar worries, it appears, about the pharmacist or the other shopkeepers on whom he offloaded the contents of his brown envelope. But like a character in a Graham Greene novel, he’s pretty big on what nuns and priests think about him.
You can see where all this is heading. True, he didn’t give the money back, but then he got it after the appeals court decision was taken and not before and he’s insisting that he would have taken that decision anyway.
Patrick Vella, who also got his money in a brown envelope after the judgment was handed down (and let’s put it this way, no drug dealer is going to pay you before he gets the goods, rather than afterwards) must be kicking himself for owning up to everything and spending two years behind bars.
Arrigo’s line of defence?
“They tried to pay me to reduce on appeal that drug-dealer’s prison sentence. But I told them that I don’t do these things and anyway, I had already decided to reduce the sentence. Then after the sentence was reduced my friend came along and chucked a brown envelope on my boardroom table and I got very cross with him and after he left I looked inside the brown envelope and saw – what a shock! – that cash was there. So after thinking about giving it to charity and deciding against because the notes might be false and the nuns would badmouth me, I went out and spent it in shops to get rid of it. The next thing I knew, my friend had been arrested, the police commissioner was grilling me, and the prime minister was giving a press conference with an ashen face. I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about, and nor do my three confessors. If that fool Vella wanted to own up and go to jail, that’s his pigeon. He picked up his own brown envelope. Mine landed on my desk and my only crime, if it can be described that way, and I don’t think it can, was in not chucking it back at Grech Sant, who ended up in jail too.”
Anybody who remarks about the exceptional brass neck on this man is correct in the observation. Damn shame the prime minister, the president and the minister of justice back in the days when he was made judge and then chief justice appear to have been among the few movers and shakers in this country who didn’t know that.
Now when Arrigo gets out of jail free, never having been there in the first place, I imagine it’s a quick hop onto the first Air Malta flight to Manchester and a really big session with the three confessors, who are no doubt girding their loins as we speak, having followed the reports on line.
What can I say? Noel Arrigo has made rubber-johnnies of us all.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
25 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Miskin! “His only crime, if it can be described that way, was that he did not chuck it back at Grech Sant” – does this guy think we’re morons and if he doesn’t know that that was crime, what the hell was he doing as a chief justice! Iddahhaqx.
I’m still really curious what he did with the money, though.
Although I am not at all interested in this case, I do look at your articles every now and again and I can’t help but feel sorry for you after you write something like this. Without going into the merits of the case, I find it comical that you seem to be such a good interpreter and analyst of words, taken from the media, while subsequently coming up with an article of your own. Is this your favourite method in coming up with an article ? I totally and unconditionally disagree with Dr Arrigo’s perceived actions, but you seem to have the facts and events all stored up in your little laptop. My advice to you is to lay off writing such degrading articles about a case that is very much in the public eye. It seems that you want to have a say in the judgement of this case. Maybe a new job title for you ;)
[Daphne – So you look at my articles every now and again. Bit difficult to read something just by looking at it. Treat them a bit like a naughty peep show, do you? Cases that are very much in the public eye are exactly what the newspapers should be commenting about. Damn shame we didn’t get the chance to discuss his appointment before it happened, because it might not have happened at all and then the country would have been spared all this. Ah Malta, still learning what democracy means.]
“Cases that are very much in the public eye are exactly what the newspapers should be commenting about.”
Agreed BUT there are ways and means to ‘comment’ on articles. Do you actually believe that your article was just a ‘commentary’? What a joke! It was more focused on running down an individual than the actual article itself.
[Daphne – What was it if not comment, my dear? A report? A verdict by the presiding judge? I imagine you belong to that army of Maltese who like nothing better than equivocating and using 100 vague words instead of just two specific ones. The mess Maltese society is in – and I’m not talking religion here – is the result of too many people thinking as you do. Do you know that people still rush to fawn over Noel Arrigo at social gatherings? It’s shocking enough that he’s invited to them, causing embarrassment to those who might prefer not to find themselves in the same room.]
It takes great skill to write a good article and I am sure you possess these skills. However even you should know that you where out of line by going on and on, making jokes about condoms and what not.
[Daphne – Honey, would you rather I were the chief justice and sold rubber-johnnies and penis rings rather than being the one who cracks jokes about the situation? In this country, you’ve got a choice: you bang your head against the wall, or you laugh. The one thing you shouldn’t do is go along with this crap.]
Don’t you have some class and style.
[Daphne – Oh, I have loads. Ask around. I don’t sell penis rings, for starters.]
Have you ever heard of Simon Barnes? He writes in the times of England. [Daphne – No such newspaper, I’m afraid.]
(look him up, and find out about writing styles and techiniques) Do you actually believe that your articles contribute to the increased volume in sales of the Malta Independent on a Thursday by writing like this? [Daphne – I don’t only believe it. I know it. And you should see the hits this blog gets. You know what? I think people are just plain fed up of being told by those who think as you do what they should be allowed to read and – more pertinently – what people like me should be allowed to write.]
Give the man some dignity and let him be tried by the court.
[Daphne – Dignity is inherent in the individual, sir. Noel Arrigo has never had any and because of that, he degraded the position of judge and that of chief justice. The man is a disgrace, whether he gets off this one case we know about or not.]
You talk about Democracy – Heres one for you
“Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.”
You are not only choosing , but you have pointed out very explicitly what your preference would be on Dr Arrgo’s fate.
A little lesson for you from the old cliche’
[Daphne – No. Democracy is the process by which public debate takes place BEFORE a public appointment is made, so that if there are any skeletons in the proposed appointee’s rather large cupboard, they will be revealed before and not when it’s much too damned late. Noel Arrigo as chief justice was a giant problem waiting to happen. The surprise is that he lasted six months, and not six weeks.]
” innocent until proven guilty”
[Daphne – Even going on what he said in court – the horse’s mouth, so to speak – he is completely and utterly disgraced. At this stage, whether he goes to jail or not is a technicality, as is whether he is found guilty or not. The point is that by his own admission, he accepted as a gift money that he knew came from a drug-dealer. If that’s OK by you, that’s fine. If the law doesn’t provide for such eventualities, that’s fine too: I’m sure that the law will be rewritten to take into account future poor judgement in the choice of judges. But a chief justice sitting in his condom/penis ring/vibrator sales office talking to the intermediaries of drug dealers and accepting envelopes of cash from them is not fine by me. And I don’t need a court judgement to take that decision.]
@Daphne,
Meta ha tigbor l-artikli kollha li ktiebt u tippublikhom fi ktieb? Nemmen li jkun bestseller. Ma tantx ghandna nies li jiktbu dak li jhossu, bhalek, hawn Malta. Mela jekk joghgbok jdumx tahsibha u ghamilha, forsi Joe Borg jara b’ghajnejh x’kont kapaci taghmel int min zmienek fit-Times sal-gurnata tal-illum.
“Do you actually believe that your articles contribute to the increased volume in sales of the Malta Independent on a Thursday by writing like this”
I’m not paying lip service or anything, but I’m often asked “Did you read Daphne today?” – I’m never asked “Did you read the Independent today.”
“he accepted as a gift money that he knew came from a drug-dealer”
… in much the same way as criminal lawyers defending such drug dealers are paid. (What I mean is that, basically, the money is coming from the same source. I wouldn’t sleep easily at night if I knew that my income – had I been a criminal lawyer – was derived from other people’s misfortunes. Then again, it takes all sorts to make a world.)
“Do you actually believe that your articles contribute to the increased volume in sales of the Malta Independent on a Thursday by writing like this”
My parents buy The Malta Independant on Sunday for Daphne’s column and Jacques – although the one today I felt was a bit off, no offence meant Daphne. We all know Joseph has the IQ of a dead donkey and now I’ve pretty much had enough of him, after that 2 hour monologue, and of people talking about him. He’s become repetitive and boring.
I usually pick up a free copy of The Malta Independent from an off-campus cafe on Thursdays and skip to her column. For the daily news, I read The Times and when I want a good laugh I skim through a free copy of MaltaToday to see if they have any conspiracy theories.
Joe Borg – A typical Maltese name … with a typical (Maltese) lack of sense of humour.
Dear Joe Borg: a friend of the ex-chief justice I presume?
I would also really like to know how it is acceptable in this country that a judge and later chief justice can also own his own business at the same time. Kullhadd irid ilahhaq m’alla u max-xitan f’dan il-pajjiz!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091119/local/arrigo-trial-defence-says-arrigo-patrick-vella-cases-are-different
The defence team is turning this case into a farce! Since when does a past criminal case ever have any bearing on an ongoing one? I could understand the defence team’s “warning” if they were faced with a jury but I doubt that the The Hon. Judge needs to be lectured about this!
And the defence team goes on “The legal position in Malta was that the crime of bribery did not happen after, but before the deed.”
You don’t even need a law degree to understand from the relevant section in the Criminal Code that this is not true…
115. Any public officer or servant who, in connection with his
office or employment, requests, receives or accepts for himself or for any other person, any reward or promise or offer of any reward in money or other valuable consideration or of any other advantage to which he is not entitled, shall, on conviction, be liable to punishment as follows:
(a) where the object of the reward, promise or offer, be to
induce the officer or servant to do what he is in duty
bound to do, the punishment shall be imprisonment for
a term from six months to three years;
(b) where the object be to induce the officer or servant to
forbear from doing what he is in duty bound to do, the
punishment shall, for the mere acceptance of the
reward, promise or offer, be imprisonment for a term
from nine months to five years;
(c) where, besides accepting the reward, promise, or offer,
the officer or servant actually fails to do what he is in
duty bound to do, the punishment shall be
imprisonment for a term from one year to eight years.
Daphne,
Very good article. Taccetta jekk nghid bil-malti li ahna pajjiz veru tan-nejk? I hate using these expressions but sometimes we deserve this.
You forgot the rosary ring in his finger.
[Daphne – ROSARY RING? Please, no! I shall DIE of laughter. Shame he didn’t pick up one of the penis rings he sells instead – but then we’ll never know, will we?]
I stand to be corrected, but as far as I know the confessor and the repentant sinner are both bound to keep the secret of what is said in a confession. True devout Christians take the advice of one confessor.
The money should have been given immediately to the Caritas Drug Rehabilitation Centre, but then it would have incriminated the judge, the best option was to send some money to the Police Commisioner so that he could state on the witness stand that the Archpriest of Haz-Zebbug handed in the money, and Mr Arrigo would state that he gave the money to the Archpriest whom he bound with the secret of confession.
[Daphne – Who gives a sh*t what he did with the money? Certainly not the law. The crime lies in accepting it, not in spending it.]
Putting it mildly I would say that this guy is unscrupulous. If I were the presiding judge I would ask this man of prayer to recite the rosary of the day and recite the penance prayer.
Gurdien xieh b’gamblu jinten jinqabad.
“He spoke for four hours, sitting on a chair beside the witness stand with a Rosary ring on the small finger of his left hand.” http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091118/local/arrigo-admits-mistakes-but-denies-receiving-any-money
[Daphne – Jaqq.]
Did he read from a prepared script when he was sitting near the witness stand? It looks like he’s wearing glasses in The Times sketch.
Oh dear, could it have been a penis ring?
http://images.google.com.mt/imgres?imgurl=http://www.debbiecaruanadingli.com/photogallery/photo16049/Noel%2520Arrigo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.debbiecaruanadingli.com/Portraits.htm&usg=___OjiiZE3WjpG_7JDqGJsdxCEMK4=&h=100&w=68&sz=17&hl=mt&start=7&tbnid=b4R6JlAjcQk1iM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=56&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnoel%2Barrigo%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dmt
“I’m hypothesising this: I’m a public official, someone offers money before I do something, I refuse it and get on with my work. That person still turns up afterwards and gives me the money because he feels he has to. That is not corrupt, but still incorrect because I accepted a gift that I should not have accepted,” lawyer Joseph Giglio said.
It would not have been corrupt had Arrigo not accepted the money. But he did, well knowing what the money was for.
“Mr Galea said he never saw Dr Arrigo in such a state.” Is this supposed to evoke sympathy for Arrigo? It has the opposite effect on me.
When did Joe Galea first mention the conversation with the former Chief Justice?
Daphne. You are implying (predicting?) that this sleaze ball is going to walk? Say it isn’t true.
Jaqq indeed. Thank you for speaking our minds.
Dr Arrigo is an embarrassment to Malta. I wonder how many bribes he received during his tenure as a judge. One would be fool to think that he doesn’t have a history of this malfeasance. A lawyer is an officer of the court, and he knowingly dishonoured it. He is tainted and the entire country knows about it. At the very least be should be disbarred from practising law.The presiding judge should do us all a favour, send a message that the courts in Malta are not run by Mickey Mouse. The defence is fighting over minor technicalities. Nevertheless the spirit of the law has been violated.
Any bets going?
I say 5 years, or then again, maybe could be a ”suspended” sentence……………..aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I say scot free, IMHO.
On another note, I’m not the same Joe Borg who commented above. I’m prettier, brighter, richer…..& so on.
Anyone remember Gianni l-Pupa holding rosary beads?
I wonder what his three confessors think of his condom business!
The three wise confessors: “See no evil.” “Hear no evil.” “Speak no evil.”