No wonder Judge Herrera bought a big house and threw parties
Consuelo Herrera snuggles up to Omar Cucciardi of the MEPA's Planning Division, at her birthday party last year
Further down you’ll find a story from Malta Today, published in April 2002, when the newspaper ran a series of articles about the corruption in Lorry Sant’s heyday.
You have to read it, because it gives crucial insight into Consuelo and Jose Herrera’s background and forma mentis. You will understand why they think and behave as they do.
Consuelo Herrera has the nerve to say that it was her husband, Dr Lawrence Scerri, who was the building developer in their marriage. And who was the building developer in her parents’ marriage – her mother?
I’ve wondered for a long time about the connection between Ronnie Pellegrini – Lorry Sant’s henchman – and Consuelo Herrera. He came to support her in court with Jason Micallef, on a personal basis, exchanged all sorts of personal remarks with her on Facebook before she was forced to deactivate her account, and now carries on familiar conversations with Robert Musumeci through the same medium. Perhaps Consuelo Herrera met Ronnie Pellegrini at a dinner party at a judge’s Big House.
Note to those born after 1987:
Lino Cauchi was an accountant with connections to developers, who vanished one night without trace. Human remains found in a well quite a while after his disappearance were found to be his. His body had been hacked to pieces. In the early 1980s, Malta was up for grabs, like the Wild West. Development permits were issued by the Public Works Minister himself, personally, and were granted as favours with cuts, kickbacks and so much corruption that you could swim in it.
The Piju Camilleri mentioned here was one of these developers. He was formed part of the gang who emerged from Alex Sceberras Trigona’s ministry of foreign affairs on Merchant Street (AST was standing in the doorway) to chase and beat young people who were demonstrating in favour of environmental protection.
Piju Camilleri personally chased my friend, caught up with her, and beat her savagely with a length of chain threaded through rubber hose. I was heavily pregnant and was pulled to safety by post office workers who hauled me in and slammed the doors shut against those who were chasing me. My friend received medical treatment and was confined to bed for a long period of recovery. Her husband lodged a formal complaint with the police, naming Piju Camilleri, but the police refused to take action.
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Cauchi mystery persists as Herrera family deny father’s involvement.
MaltaToday reveals details of Borg Costanzi report
Lino Cauchi’s brutal and cruel murder remains shrouded in mystery but investigations carried out by MaltaToday over recent weeks have progressively lent credibility to one side of the allegations. These hover around incidents that took place in the turbulent days of a late seventies and eighties involving the sale of large tracts of land today worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Today this newspaper is publishing the shocking evidence given by Joseph Borg before Inquiring Magistrate Silvio Meli late last year. This contrasts greatly with the version of events given by Piju Camilleri the former Labour thug and Lorry Sant henchman in the same inquiry.
Joseph Borg, known for maintaining a fighting spirit when his wife died not long after a bomb was placed outside his home, was instrumental in confirming the corruption that pervaded under a Labour government in the late seventies and early eighties. His evidence finally led to the suspension of Lorry Sant from the Labour party after incriminating evidence was presented in court.
Excerpts of Joseph Borg’s evidence, also published last week, reveal how he alleges that in 1985 the late Justice Herrera had put undue pressure on him to reach an agreement with Piju Camilleri over pending court cases. But these were denounced as false by the judge’s children, Jose Herrera and Consuelo Herrera.
In a letter sent to this newspaper Labour MP Jose Herrera and Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera (see page 9) reiterate that their father had been acquitted of all the allegations by the Permanent Commission Against Corruption, which had investigated the case.
Borg also alleges that Judge Herrera was given building permits in a green area in Zejtun soon after the alleged threat took place in the courtroom. Justice Herrera had defended himself by saying that he had applied for the permits on behalf of his wife’s family who owned the property.
The conclusions of the Permanent Commission against Corruption, presided over by Justice Victor Borg Costanzi, state that “there is no evidence to show that Judge Herrera was involved in any act of corruption in the occasion of the issuing of building permits”.
But the Commission’s report confirms that the late Justice Herrera did confide to a prominent lawyer that Lorry Sant would arrange for him to have permits for development.
The Commission did not stop here. It concluded that permits for the property owned by Justice Herrera could only have been issued by works minister Lorry Sant himself.
The Commission’s report also concludes that “Joseph Borg, a person who was very attentive because of what he had suffered, could have, from his position, genuinely formed an opinion that the Judge was involved in an act of corruption”.
However, further investigations by this newspaper reveal that the Herreras’ were not at all out of touch with the property business as stated by Justice Herrera in a number of statements.
Company documents in MaltaToday’s possession show that in 1990 Dr Joseph Herrera was appointed as a director to a property company in which his son Jose Herrera was also a shareholder. Another judge who now faces serious allegations of fraud also had an indirect interest in the property company, which had taken a substantial loan in 1987 to acquire a large villa in Sliema.
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Does anyone know who the “other judge” mentioned in the last paragraph is?
Malta Today does. Maybe they could fill in the blank here.
Thanks for making it all make sense.
So the photo shows a property developer and an officer of the development regulator.
What’s missing is THE Architect.
Marlene Pullicino: “Maaaa, issa x’se naghmel jien?”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101008/local/church-official-warns-judges-who-rule-for-divorce
Expect Joseph Muscat to issue a statement saying that the Mgr. Said Pullicino is putting undue pressure on the judiciary. He might go as far as insisting that he detects the invisible hand of Gonzi (the late Archbishop, not the PM) in the matter.
Joseph Muscat failing to suck up to the major vote-puller in this country? Not bloody likely!
If only you put as much effort into investigating today’s corruption and blatant abuse of taxpayers’ money as much as you do in telling (and retelling) these dinosaur stories you’d score more credibility points across a wider spectrum of people (and I’m not talking labour supporters) rather than the same group of narrow-minded adulators, most of whom would congratulate you even if you’d shove a pencil in their eye, let alone feed them these half-baked gossips.
[Daphne – Touchy-touchy. Aren’t you missing something here? This man is the future, not the past: the future minister of the interior. And hadn’t you noticed? I am investigating today’s issues: that what the Herrera case is all about. But to you, today’s corruption has to be – what? the government? Chris Said and perjury? Paul Borg Olivier and one VAT return from 2006? If that’s your corruption, you don’t know you’re born.]
Daphne please tell me this a a paid PN advert and not your heartfelt belief.
Piju Camilleri and his family live a life of luxury, throwing expensive parties while a cloud hangs over whoever killed Lino Cauchi.
Who foots the bill for the “expensive parties”? That’s a genuine question.
Echos of the Anastasi report. Il-Gens had given a very vivid depiction of who was related to whom in the web of corruption revealed by that report, worth reviving the memory.
When did Judge Herrera die?
Can we see his denunzja?
Can we see what he left behind him, and then see whether it was possible for a Judge to leave so much?
What is the real consistency of the Herrera’s asset portfolio?
Someone mentioned a cabin cruiser in the 1980s. How much did a cabin cruiser cost back then? What was the salary of a Judge?
What does Jose’ Herrera own? How much does he declare?
What does Consuelo Herrera own? We know how much she earns, because her salary is public knowledge.
It is in the interest of the people to know all this.
The people demands, the people expects. Will the people be told?
Does the name Veronica Guerin mean anything to you? Daphne is not in her league but the best you’ve got.
Prosit, JP.
In the USA, half the Mafia bosses were convicted because of tax fraud, as it was the only way the authorities could get them. Alla jbierek hawn Malta in this pessisa of an island where everyone knows everything about everyone, the culprits get away even with murder, literally.
Right now, a certain Norman Bezzina is being tried for drugs-related crimes.
He is claiming that a certain Lippu l-Boxer is a dangerous man who threatens people. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101008/local/accused-insists-only-connection-with-drugs-was-at-sedqa
This Lippu is “haga wahda ma'” Jose’.
Their relationship started way back in the 80s – when Jose’s father presided over a trial in which Lippu was the accused.
How come we know so little about Jose’s business partners?
I only met Judge Joseph Herrera once. He gave me a suspended prison sentence (I’ve forgotten how long – a few months I think) for writing anti-Mintoff slogans on the walls of the Drydocks and Xandir (aka Dardir) Malta.
Reading all this, the background of Herrera’s connections and Lino’s Cauchi ‘disappearance’, I am not surprised that the police have arranged for a permament police presence in front of your house.
And just like that, Malta Today decided to give up investigating this story. When exactly did they last report on the subject? And what changed?
I see that the corruption phenomenon has suddenly begun to concern the nationalists as well.
Dear il-lejborist, nobody is saying that the people in goverment are perfect but as my mother always taught me when I was growing up, you have to choose a government so choose the better one.
She was also a Labour voter way back in the late 60s until she saw with her own eyes what was happening to the country, more importantly to my dad, and later on, to us as a family.
To Ian,
The “other judge” when I reported him to the Permanent Commission Against Corruption, preferring to resign before the P.C.A.C could filed its report after concluding its “investigations” .
The Commission, chaired by Mr Justice Albert Manche concluded its report thus:- “Dan kien zball ta L-imhallef G.M.A..li jidher li sallum ghadu ma fehemx sew il-funzjoni tas-Sekon’Awla .” “Il-perseveranza f’dan l-izball, ghall-anqas, ghandha timmilita favur L-imh G.M.A.”
Up to the date of the report I had always followed the dictum ” To err is human but to persist is diabolical” . However Mr Justice Manche’s reasoning radically tried to erode the old saying.
I had learned that any report against members of the judiciary should not be chaired by one of their colleagues as this involves vested interests, and their prime aim would direct them to cling to any minor misinformation to build a case to free their colleague from the accusations,
.