Inspector Gadget screws up royally – again

Marelli, imagine if Anglu Farrugia had won that party leadership election back in 2003 when Sant resigned and then decided to come back by popular demand.

He might have been prime minister today.

No wonder he was in such a rotten mood in court this morning, while his lawyer Edward Gatt got his jollies telling Magistrate Silvio Meli what a liar I am. He had been made an utter fool of in a separate court case, also this morning (see story below).

A liar – me. What a shame you can’t sue lawyers for what they say about you in court on behalf of their former-police-inspector-in-the-days-of-Lorry-Pullicino clients.

Inspector Gadget’s lawyer made much of the fact that his client was one of the prosecuting officers when Lorry Pullicino was brought to trial. He wanted to know why I never mentioned it.

Well, I’ll mention it now, shall I?

Yes, Inspector Gadget was one of the prosecuting officers when Lorry Pullicino was brought to trial. It was post-1987 (of course) and he was desperate to curry favour with the new government and particularly with police minister Guido de Marco. It was widely known that Inspector Gadget hoped to take Lorry Pullicino’s place and become police commissioner himself. Why, he might even have been promised the post, and if the foot-in-both camps police minister had had his way, he would have done. But fortunately, somebody quite correctly pointed out that enough is really enough.

Amusing, isn’t it, how Anglu Farrugia suddenly saw grounds to prosecute Lorry Pullicino when the government changed but was quite content to carry on working for him before that.

Inspector Gadget’s lawyer told the court this morning that his client “did not see eye to eye” with Lorry Pullicino. Ah, I see. He didn’t agree with all that nasty business of police interrogation leading to hospitalisation and the interrogated leaving police HQ as a corpse in the boot of a police car to be dumped in a valley. Oh, so that’s all right then.

In that case, he should have b**gered off and got a job as a caretaker somewhere, not stayed on as a police inspector with a nice little interrogation room all of his own.

One day I will understand how people like Anglu Farrugia can make it so far in Maltese politics that they end up as deputy leader of the government-party-in-waiting. We might have no divorce, but by God, just look at our legislators. That tells you everything you need to know, because they are a reflection of the people who put them there.

What a screwed-up country this is.

Pssst! Anglu! Any time you want to sell your vote just let me know. I’ll buy you another trip to the Taj Mahal so that you can reacquaint yourself with that elephant.

Ma, x’pajjiz. Hard to believe that this is the future deputy prime minister we’re talking about. In three years’ time we’ll be yelling ‘Come back, Tonio Borg – all is forgiven.’ At least Tonio Borg has a brain. And he never worked for Lorry Pullicino. Nor did he ever arrest me, aged 19, at my place of work on ELEVEN trumped-up charges, dump me in a pitch-dark shit-smeared cell for 27 hours, and then make me sign a false confession by telling me that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave police custody until I did – at a time when, might I remind you, people sometimes left custody dead in the boot of a car.

Edward Gatt, Inspector Gadget’s lawyer, told the court that his client wasn’t responsible for the condition of the cells at police HQ. Oh really? Well, I hope that if Anglu Farrugia ever has to ask some 19-year-old girl round to see his etchings (she would have to be frigging desperate) he wipes the shit off the walls before he invites her in. But then there probably isn’t any shit on the walls chez Farrugia, because you know, Anglu is responsible for those.

You can sue me till the cows come home, Anglu Farrugia. Nothing will change the truth, or stop me repeating it.

And next time you want to sue me for libel, put your hand in your pocket and pay for it yourself. Don’t do it off the taxpayer’s back by using the police in a criminal libel suit, as you’re doing now. You have wasted enough police time and resources with all your mad cant about xiri ta’ voti.

Boy, what I would give for that photograph of Anglu Farrugia addressing the preSSSS outside Police HQ after presenting John Rizzo with a fajl ta’evidenza ta’ xiri ta’ voti minn agenti Nazzjonalisti. Can anyone send it to me?

You are the liar, Anglu Farrugia, and you have the nerve to get Edward Gatt to call me one on your behalf in court. You are the one who told me back then in 1984 (how appropriate), after having me brought from my shit-smeared, pitch-black cell, that you had photographs of me attacking a policeman when I knew that there could be no such photographs because I hadn’t done anything of the sort.

‘Show me,’ I said. ‘Show me those photographs.’ But you had none to show. If you had, you would have produced them in court. But you couldn’t, because there were none.

What there were instead were witnesses who saw me being grabbed by the throat and punched in the chest by a policeman I learned later was the notorious PC 710 – the corpse-in-the-boot man.

Nice one, Anglu. Mur arak prim ministru.

Yes, you are the liar – the liar who made me sign a false confession in full knowledge that it was indeed false; the liar who was determined to have somebody, anybody, arrested and charged so as to curry favour with the regime of time in the hope of a pat on the back and a promotion. The liar who hit the roof when the presiding magistrate threw out your trumped-up charges.

And the liar who got away with it, because I never went after you with an illegal arrest axe. And you think yourself fit to become prime minister.

Don’t make us laugh any more than you have done already. If anything illustrates what sort of a crap police inspector you were back then, it’s this story today. Imagine building your case on what you heard from Is-Sei, when you knew he was involved in the drug trafficker/Noel Arrigo/Patrick Vella shocker. What should that have told you about him?

Buying votes indeed. Piss off, Anglu Farrugia. It’s all you’re fit for.

timesofmalta.com, noon today

Man found not guilty of general election corrupt practices

A man accused of corrupt practices at the last general election was declared not guilty by a court this morning.

Pierre Bartolo 44 of Swieqi, a director of Papillon Caterers, had been accused of threatening two employees and ordering them to vote Nationalist.

The case was instituted by PL deputy leader Anglu Farrugia, who had told the court that after the elections he had received several reports of persons who were paid to vote Nationalist.

Testifying, PL deputy leader Anglu Farrugia had said that after the elections he had received several reports of persons who were paid to vote Nationalist.

He said that Anthony Zammit, a Papillon employee, had spoken to him and told him that he had been threatened and told to vote Nationalist. A certain man he knew as Cioffi went with him to the polling station and he was told to take a photo of his ballot paper using his mobile phone.

Dr Farrugia said this was just one of around 100 to 200 cases that he had asked the police to investigate in a report.

The accused, he said, had bought votes for €200 each. Anthony Zammit was fired from work shortly after the election.

During the court hearings it was claimed that two employees, Kristylee Bezzina and Anthony Zammit had been instructed and threatened over how to vote at the general elections by their employer. Three other employees described Anthony Zammit, also known as Is-Sei, as unreliable.

The court said there had been no evidence to prove beyond all reasonable doubt the claims made by Anthony Zammit , particularly because Mr Cioffi in his testimony had denied giving him his wife’s mobile phone in order to take a photo of his vote.

The court, presided by Magistrate Audrey Demicoli also found that Mr Bartolo did not influence Ms Bezzina or perform any form of corrupt practice.

The court said it believed that the fact that someone encouraged another person to go to vote or provided a means of transport to go to vote could not be seen as being an illegal influence or corrupt practice, otherwise the electoral offices of the political parties which arranged transport for those who did not have it would also be guilty of illegal influence and corrupt practice.