Ganni l-Pupa, Julia Farrugia's father, Karmenu Vella's ministerial car, a submachine gun, and what Joseph Muscat's shadow foreign minister refused to say in court
Prime Minister Karmenu MIfsud Bonnici being carried by the crowd with his minister of industry and commerce, Karmenu Vella. KMB was especially fond of Karmenu Vella because he stood shoulder to shoulder with him in his crusade against church schools in 1984.
On 1 December 1986, in the dying months of the golden years of Labour, some thugs who championed cabinet minister Wistin Abela (an evil dwarf with large ears) left the Zejtun Labour Party club in a convoy of cars and headed for parliament, where they made a scene.
They included Anthony Carabott (it-Toto), Ganni Psaila (il-Pupa) and another six.
On the way back to Zejtun, they took a detour past the Nationalist Party club in Hal Tarxien, which was closed (dammit). They brought out a submachine gun and let rip at the door.
———-
On 3 February 1997 Ganni Psaila testified under oath in court that he was in Anthony Carabott’s Landrover that night and he knew who had shot at the PN club because he had seen him do it.
Psaila said that while he and Carabott were driving back to Zejtun, Karmenu Vella’s driver pulled up alongside in Vella’s ministerial car.
This was Karmenu Farrugia (il-Botom), father of Illum editor Julia Farrugia. Psaila told the court that Farrugia asked them how to get to the PN Club in Tarxien. They went there together.
Psaila said that he got out of the Landrover, broke through some of the shrubs on the centre strip so that Karmenu Vella’s driver could take better aim, then Farrugia brought out a submachine gun and fired at the PN club door.
Farrugia denied doing this, claiming that he was in parliament at the time.
That same day, the court also heard the testimony of George Vella. In 1986, when the shooting happened, he was not a politician but a general practitioner in Zejtun. On the day he spoke in court, however, he was deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
He told the court under oath that Ganni Psaila had spoken to him about what had happened that night in December 1986, but because of professional secrecy, he refused to tell the court what Psaila had said.
The court did not press the matter further, or ask Psaila to release George Vella from the bond of professional secrecy.
The Malta Independent asked George Vella whether he would speak the truth if Ganni Psaila were to release him from professional secrecy, but Vella refused to answer the question.
————
Forensic investigations revealed that the submachine gun used to shoot at the Tarxien Nationalist Party Club on 1 December was the same one which killed Raymond Caruana four days later, when it was fired in through the door of the Gudja Nationalist Party Club.
The police somehow got hold of that submachine gun and took it with them when an entire platoon descended on the farm buildings owned by a certain Peter Paul Busuttil, a farmer in Hal Safi who didn’t like the Labour Party. While a shocked Busuttil was kept to one side as his property was searched, one of the police officers cried out that he had found the weapon hidden in some hay-bales.
Busuttil was clapped into handcuffs and hauled off to the police depot in Floriana. A great spectacle was made of his arraignment on murder charges, to show Malta that look, it was not a Labour thug who did it.
I will never forget the press photographs of a stunned and dazed Busuttil being led into court by a police officer who is now Police Commissioner John Rizzo.
It was obvious to all people of good will, and many of ill will too, that Pietru Pawl Busuttil had been framed by the police in league with the real culprits and the politicians who protected them.
We knew this because it was public knowledge that the real culprits were the usual suspects. The notorious Landrover had been seen.
For the first time in 15 years, people put aside their fear and began to stand up to be counted individually, in broad daylight and using their own name.
Many prominent persons and even several ordinary ones took out advertisements in The Times which said simply: I BELIEVE PIETRU PAWL BUSUTTIL IS INNOCENT, and underneath, they put their name.
Peter Paul Busuttil became ill with the shock while he was in custody. He was taken to St Luke’s Hospital and placed in a room, not a ward, where an attempt was made on his life during the night.
Somebody tried to push him out of the window but did not succeed.
Procedures against him came to nothing.
————–
The Labour Party was voted out of power five months later.
————–
Investigations revealed that the submachine gun belonged to Nicholas Ellul (Ic-Caqwes), one of former cabinet minister Wistin Abela’s thugs. Ellul was arrested and charged on 24 December, 1990, with the murder of Raymond Caruana and with a violent attack on the Gudja PN Club.
He was not held on remand. The urgency of his arraignment, on Christmas Eve and a Sunday, was followed by an odd complacency. Ten years went by without his testimony being heard.
Under the strain of this hanging over his head, Ellul sank into severe depression and spent time at Mount Carmel Hospital. He had substance abuse problems and was frequently to be found drunk and disorderly in public.
He tried to overdose on prescription pills twice unsuccessfully. He succeeded the third time, in March 2001.
The chief suspect died without trial and so the murder of Raymond Caruana will remain unsolved.
—————
In the early 1990s, Ganni Psaila appears to have had some kind of crisis of conscience after finding Jesus. He approached Guido de Marco, at the time deputy prime minister, and said that he wished to unburden himself.
He had spoken already to George Vella, his doctor in Zejtun and by then a Labour politician.
When word got out that Psaila had spoken to deputy prime minister de Marco, a powerful bomb was placed in his FIAT Cinque Cento car. Astonishingly, Psaila survived though his car did not, but he was left with both legs permanently crippled, unable to walk properly.
In 1996, still needing to unburden himself, Ganni Psaila repented in the most public manner possible: on Xarabank. He expressed regret for all that he had done, but did not go into detail because of the legal restrictions on implicating third parties in a public forum in that manner.
He appeared at a Nationalist Party mass meeting in the general election campaign that year, a move which backfired spectacularly: for the party, whose supporters didn’t want repentance and forgiveness but prosecution; and for Ganni Psaila, when the Nationalists lost and he found himself more exposed than ever to the retribution of those Labour Party people who saw him as a turncoat and grass rather than as a religious penitent.
Psaila had agreed to testify in the case against Nicholas Ellul.
In court, he said that he had been offered an official pardon for turning state’s evidence, but he would not say who had made him this offer, despite the magistrate’s repeated requests, because he said that the person had asked him not to reveal his name and he wanted to honour the promise.
The magistrate jailed him for contempt to give him time to reconsider his position. He did not reconsider his position. Instead he filed a Constitutional application protesting against his imprisonment, pointing out that he had volunteered himself as a witness.
Before the Constitutional Court could pronounce itself, Ganni Psaila died. The police said that he had fallen into a building shaft while escaping from them during a rooftop chase. Psaila had been crippled by the bomb blast and walked with a severe limp.
This rooftop chase occurred, they explained, when two police officers happened to be going past a closed and shuttered building and heard a noise inside. They broke in to find Psaila in the act of burglary. On his crippled legs, he raced away from them, whipped up the stairs to the roof leaving the two policemen trailing in his wake, opened the roof door before the policemen reached him, and began leaping over rooftops, always with the officers unable to catch up, until he plunged into a shaft.
The key witness in the Raymond Caruana murder trial had died before the accused.
.
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Why is it that even the Nationalist Party’s media refrain from imparting detailed recounts like the one above?
Unluckily I can see why they don’t. It would blow up in their face if they did, and their accounts would be considered biased.
This really is a job for independent journalists.
Daphne, your account above fails to mention the year and possibly month when Ganni Psaila fell into that shaft.
I found it very strange back then when his death was reported that the media did not question the circumstances of it – not even the PN. Or was I asleep?
Why do you – and it seems everyone on this blog – have to assume that people don’t change for the better? History is littered with people who started out as bandits and ended up saints.
[Daphne – Ah, but history and the present are far more heavily littered with bandits who stayed bandits. Smart people go on the assumption that once a bandit, always a bandit, and they are usually right, barring a Damascene conversion usually provoked by religion.]
The first thing a bandit-turned-saint would need to do would be to confess his crimes and pay whatever penalty is specified by law.
Let’s see Karmenu Vella, for one, start earning his halo.
No doubt Lorry Sant, Wistin, Patrick Holland and the rest were surrounded by praying priests blessing their little souls prior to their departure.
Their decaying bodies were riddled with regrets for surrounding themselves with corrupt and bullet-spraying criminals. Patrick Holland even had the front to send a message to a victim of his corrupt practice from his deathbed.
[Daphne – I think that message helped them both.]
I suppose they are keeping an eye on you from above and praying for all your needs. Sorry I have no time for deathbed reform. If they really wanted to show their grief for their actions they should have done so during their miserable lives.
So please give me a break. Should Labour win the next election in two years’ time you will see the marmalja in full force from day one. That’s what this country has inherited from Labour.
Bandits are welcome to wear hair shirts and to stay out of public office for the rest of their lives.
El Topo are you talking about the conversion of ‘Il-Pupa’ ?
Nah, just taking da piss. Can’t see any immolations happening.
The father of an ex-Labour candidate in Zejtun once said that he would believe that il-Pupa had changed his criminal ways when his cat starts to bark.
It seems that you believe Ganni Psaila had a change of conscience. I saw him on Xarabank and anyone who was not wearing blue tinted glasses could see that he was acting.
Conversion my foot, he was getting paid for preaching about his conversion, he even had it good with the PN, of course people in their right mind saw right through him and realised that either EFA was using him or He was ujsing EFA, in both scenarios EFA did not look good, that is what lost EFA his face with PN supporters.
Up to this day Dr Eddie Fenech Adami is chided by LP apologists that he had not kept his promise to disclose the identity of the murderer/s of Raymond Caruana.
Thanks, Daphne, for filling in the gaps so efficiently and corroborating my repeated insistence that the MLP police had been actively and successfully engaged in destroying evidence and, not so successfully, in framing innocent people.
[Daphne – All of this is public knowledge and available in various newspaper reports. It was just a matter of putting them together.]
Dr Saliba is right. you only got loose ends and never the whole picture, why? Thanks.
There is a very good book entitled ‘Liberta Mhedda’ by Dione Borg which documents everything in great detail. A must-read for all those who want to know what really happened in the 80s.
I suggest that you try to confirm if the policeman involved in Pupa’s chase was Toni Abela’s brother ex PS 994.
People do change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Trying to present the 70s and 80s as the glorious days of the MLP/LP does not suggest any change for the better.
The exhumation of that rotten past and parading it in front of an intelligent electorate today is much more likely to induce it to pinch its nostrils so as not to be overwhelmed by the stench.
Prosit, Daphne. You are a star!
Roger de Giorgio and Saviour Balzan must be really proud of having it-tifla tal BOTOM working for them as the editor of their newsparper Illum.
is this important? it’s not. she ‘s doing her job.
“On 3 February 1997 Ganni Psaila testified…” That was during Labour’s short term in office…funny that isn’t it? That such a cause celebre for the Nationalists is more or less ignored judicially for 11 years, during most of which they were in government, and the process gets going only in 1997, under a Labour one. In fact “The urgency of his arraignment, on Christmas Eve and a Sunday, was followed by an odd complacency. Ten years went by without his testimony being heard.”
[Daphne – It DIDN’T get going during Labour’s short term in office, Albert. It had been dragging on since 1990. And of course, you miss the salient point that George Vella, then deputy PM and foreign minister, refused to contribute valuable testimony and so effectively hindered the progress of the case. Professional secrecy, my eye. If Psaila had spoken to him about piles, maybe, but not about murder. What is Vella now, a priest, with his secrets of the confessional? I’m shocked that the magistrate let him get away with that one while jailing Psaila for refusing to say who spoke to him about turning state’s evidence.]
There is only one answer to this mystery – GWIDO
Hi,
I wonder whether ‘obstruction of justice’ is applicable in Malta. If it is why isn’t our judiciary doing something about it?
Police Commissioner John Rizzo is controversial. Was the man always merely “obeying orders”? Whereas “obeying orders” might be an acceptable legal defence, is it also morally acceptable?
He arrested Peter Paul Busuttil, taking a prominent part in the theatrics.
He was right-hand man to Lawrence Pullicino. Under his leadership, the Police Corps strip-searched two Sliema councillors for allegedly misappropriating two laptops.
This man has a lot to explain to the public at large.
Last Saturday I heard him (Commissioner Rizzo) praising the labour corps and saying how useful they were (he apparently served in one or something).
And the wise men at the helm of the Government made him Commissioner of Police – unbelievable.
This is how Lino Spiteri ended one of his articles (regarding his marriage in a sacristy):
“I pray to God that will never happen again, in my lifetime or beyond. The sufferings of the time were almost worse than the sufferings of the finality of death. They symbolised the death of reason.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/…/mourning-the-death-of-reason
What should we say and write after reading the above?
I should have said ‘after living through what is described above’ and not ‘after reading’.
A ‘mistake’ haunting the Nationalists is that, as you said, many wanted justice after 1987, and many, my parents included, felt that the thugs got away practically scot free.
Till today, it riles me up to see notorious policemen from the eighties without even a slap on the wrist.
It-Toto kept on living happily in ‘Totohouse’ (that’s the name of his house – honestly) none the worse for wear.
Unfortunately, Fenech Adami had a hell of a task rebuilding the country and probably thought that reconciliation was more vital, or maybe it was Guido Demarco’s brilliant idea.
I think that in the long term, the strategy failed because it left many open wounds and many of today’s generation find it hard to believe how bad things were.
[Daphne – I agree with you entirely.]
It was only a mistake because Labour refused to go along with the spirit of reconciliation post-1987.
As we have seen throughout the years, they never even admitted their crimes, let alone repent . Apology? What’s that?
All we got were Manwel Cuschieri. screams of “gwerra, gwerra, gwerra”, monuments to Lorry Sant and now the rest of the pack climbing back out of the sewer.
Fenech Adami sought to break the PN-MLP feud that had reached civil war proportions by the time he became PM. Although I did not – and still do not – agree with his method, he did have a point.
It feeds the notion that politicians from opposing parties sometimes (often?) collude when it serves their self interest.
Hi David,
To this day, the guy is still preaching and recounting to his acolytes about his participation in the mentioned ‘hnizrijiet’ – in public places, and yet……
I know and yet … nothing can aver be done now can it except make sure it’s never forgotten!
Il-qawl Malti jghid li l-lupu jibdel sufu imma mhux ghemilu.
Did ‘items’ go missing when the Law Courts were ransacked by the mob a short time after the change in government in 1987?
[Daphne – In an earlier post, I described how the courts were ransacked and documents and files thrown out into the road and shredded. Karmenu Vella and Lorry Sant were with the mob at the time.]
This is excellent research journalism.
The sad thing about Malta is that the public tend to forget rather quickly the dark days of our political past.
Now the PN will take a stand against divorce and they will lose my vote for being so obstinate. But they would have brought that upon themselves. What a shame.
OK, so you are practically voting in the thugs and the return of the dark days because of divorce – great thinking man, keep it up! Vera f’sensik.
…and you think the PL is pro divorce?
My father was one of those thugs.
He was tormented and ashamed by his deeds till his death.
Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he remained a Mintoffian until a couple of years before his death. My mother is a staunch PN supporter and as far as I know still supports her party.
People can indeed change for the better.
Whether thugs are/were tormented and ashamed in later years or not is besides the point and personally cannot care less.
What really matters for decent law-abiding citizens is whether justice is made and seen to be made. More importantly ring-leaders of those thugs, such as Karmenu Vella, are not given any position in future governments.
I do believe that Il-Pupa had had a change of heart. It wouldn’t be the first time and certainly not the the last.
The strange thing about this account is that he was leaping over rooftops with crippled legs. I have always suspected this was another fabrication of the police officers involved in the alleged chase.
Indeed, his car wasn’t blown up for no reason at all, and whoever committed that attempt on his life managed to finally get rid of Psaila.
Still the mind boggles: if Vella is a medical doctor, and Psaila revealed to him matters unrelated to medicine then surely, why has he been deemed to be bound by professional secrecy?
These were times before the enactment of the Professional Secrecy Act and hence, I wonder why George Vella hid behind this veil of secrecy, as it were.
The explanation is a simple one. George Vella weighed up the pros and cons of testifying and came to the conclusion that the price of speaking up, as required by law, was higher than the cost of keeping quiet.
Tal-biza, tal-wahx! Dawn ma jinbidlu qatt, sparar, qtil, korruzzjoni, u kull tip ta’ bullying.
Nispera li sehibna l-progressiv u l-moderat Joe Muscat jafhom dawn il-fatti.
Daphne, obbligati lejk ta’ kif fi ftit versi naqqaxt storja sewda faham. Nahfru iva, Ninsew Qatt.
Gabibbs, mhux talli ma ninsewx, izda rridu nfakkru lil dawk li ma jiftakrux f’dan iz-zmiem mogziez.
Prosit, Daphne. Shame that your site has become the ONLY source for precise incisive news, or, as in the above case, an exact interpretation of historicaL facts.
I still don’t understand why Karmenu Farrugia was not charged with the Tarxien shooting. Even if Ganni Psaila died, his testimony should still stand.
And another thing: why did the police or the Attorney General move so slowly? Nicholas Ellul was charged in 1990 but Psaila’s testimony was only heard in 1997.
Surely more urgency was warranted in such a politically sensitive case.
[Daphne = And Nicholas Ellul’s was never heard at all when he died in 2001.]
Yes…WHY did things move so slowly?
The crimes committed were indeed abominable, but then, the people responsible for law and order between 1987 and 1996, and then again from 1998 to date have been politicians belonging to the “injured” party. Why was noone prosecuted under their watch? I think this is the question which is relevant now.
Daphne –
Prosit ta’ dan ir rapport.
Izda nista insaqsi mistoqsija ghax ghandi dubbju?
Il-Pupa wara li kienu qieghdin jigru warajh il pulizija, x`gara ezatt, nafu jekk qabiezx, jew waqa fi shaft jew xi haga ohra.
[Daphne – How can I possibly know? I guess you haven’t read between the lines: a man with a bad limp can’t outrun two police officers and rush up stairs or leap over rooftops, can he.]
Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack ruby come to mind
Lino Cauchi, the accountant, comes to mind also
Readers of this blog, The Times’ editorial today is worth a read:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110209/opinion/editorial
“The Nationalists are now accusing Labour of wanting to rewrite history by harping on what the PL believed were the glory days, with the PN leader rolling off a list of shameful occurrences, or strategies, under Labour, such as the setting up of the labour corps under military discipline and import restrictions. True, nobody would want a return to those times but have not the people heard enough about this?”
[Daphne – I can tell the person who wrote this that no, the people have not heard enough about this. There is a great deal of interest, and I can vouch for that because, through a blog and unlike a newspaper, you can interest in individual stories.]
There are certainly people who are younger than 30/40 who do not know what happened, because of lack of information about the era and also simply because they have not lived through that era, but who are interested in knowing what happened.
I am one of them, and please Daphne, keep the stories going, because I think that the Maltese people (all of them) need to know what really happened.
Pity that not enough coverage is given to this by independent media, as many people, especially Labourites, consider you to be a PN acolyte, and thus dismiss your writing as PN propaganda.
[Daphne – They would, wouldn’t they?]
The people have NOT “heard enough about this.” Especially when you consider that the Labour Party is proposing the same people of the 70s.
Only when the Labour Party puts those people behind it, then, yes, we would have heard enough.
At this point, the problem is that those people themselves have not heard enough – otherwise they would have moved to the side.
Daphne, when you finally calm down from your umpteenth hysterical outburst (yes, yes I know what you said was all true as I lived through those years) you might want to comment about the excellent piece wriiten by Martin Scicluna on today’s Malta Today. You might also find the courage to comment about Austin Gatt’s pathetic and hypocritical outburst against divorce on The Times a few weeks ago. Austin Gatt! I repeat, Austin Gatt! Lecturing us about the evil of divorce and defender of moral values. X’pajjiz man. What thick skin. Ah but i forget. You had already begun to pave the way that the thrashing (unfortuantetly for Maltese society) the pro-divorce lobby and all sensible people at that, will suffer in a possible referndum was all because of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
[Daphne – I believe everybody is entitled to think what they please about divorce. I don’t think Austin Gatt is the wrong person to preach about marriage. His own marriage is probably one of the most successful ones I know, and his devotion to his wife is certainly the most charming thing about him. You can take his arguments apart at various levels, but the one thing you can’t accuse him of is hypocrisy. The same can be said for Martin Scicluna: he was divorced and has remarried, so he too speaks from experience. As for the rest, from the tone of your comment it is apparent that you are the one who is feeling slightly hysterical. Take a deep breath.]
Ah! Good to discover that personal experiences have a role to play in the positions adopted and language styles used by particular characters in the divorce debate. Thanks for the info.
Wow, what a trip down memory lane! I had the occasion of meeting Gianni Psaila and believe me it was not a nice experience.
He came to talk to us youngsters about how he converted from his bad days involving bombs to his now good days. After his talk, I approached him and asked him if he was involved in bombs way back to 1985 – I couldn’t believe my ears when he said yes.
Well, it is my word against his and he is dead, but I know what I asked and heard.
Than I heard that he fell off a roof-top – well, I said he is finally standing in front of his Maker.
Nifhem ben tajjeb x’qed jghid/tghid The Box.
Ganni l-Pupa, fiz-zmien li kkonverta, kien jattendi l-grupp Karizmatiku ta’ Blata l-Bajda. Jien kont hemm mal-Karizmatici dik il-habta.
Kien imexxi l-grupp certu Andrew. Imma qatt ma tajt kas lill-Pupa ghax dak iz-zmien ta’ zaghzugh li kont qajla kont inhabbel mohhi minn x’kien ghaddej f’pajjzi.
Siehbi, madankollu, kien jafu u jkellmu lill-Pupa. Dak li ghedt int kollu minnu.
Il-Pupa qal il-pura verita’. Ghalija mhemmx fiex titfixkel wisq biex tifhem min qatel lil Raymond Caruana u min spara fuq il-kazin Nazzjonalista.
Alla l-Imbierek hekk jahdem. Kriminal fahxi bhal Pupa sar wiehed minn dawk li jmorru jfahhru lil Alla. Is-soghba tieghu ghal dak li wettaq kienet genwina U MALTA KOLLHA SARET TAF fuq in-nofs mudlam wahxi tal-Partit Laburista.
Haga ohra li m’ghandha x’taqsam xejn ma’ dil-bicca: jien kont nattendi ghal-laqghat ta’ talb ta’ Guza Mifsud tal-Girgenti. Dil-mara – bidwija analfabeta qaddisa – kienet bassret id-data meta se nidhlu fl-Unjoni Ewropea, li l-PN kien se jaghmel zmien twil fil-gvern ”bandiera blu tperper ghal zmien twil fuq il-bjut” u li Alfred Sant ma kienx se jaghmel aktar minn sentejn fil-gvern.
Il-fatti jibqghu fatti. Guido Demarco li dahhalna fl-UE kien devot tal-Madonna tal-Karmnu u wiehed jista’ jiccekkja ghall-affari tieghu jekk il-festa tal-Madonna tal-Karmnu tahbtax ma’ data storika ghal pajjizna.
Sant kien ateu u l-Ewwel Weraq tal-Bajtar jirrifletti kif kien jahsibha fuq ir-religjon meta kien zaghzugh. Ma rridx nghid li l-Madonna hi Nazzjonalista ghax bla sens … imma hu fatt li ma jinnegah hadd : il-politici gganti li kien hemm fil-PN (u ma jkun hemm bhalhom qatt!) bhal Ugo u Antoine Mifsud Bonnici, De Marco u Eddie Fenech Adami kienu kollha nies ta’ fidi kbira, ihobbu lill-Madonna u devoti taghha.
U min jitlob jaqla’ kif hemm miktub fl-Iskrittura Mqaddsa. Jalla l-politici zghazagh sekularisti Nazzjonalisti (bhal Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando u Jean Pierre Farrugia) jitghallmu kif ikunu kbar daqs il-politici gganti ta’ qabilhom. Mhux ta’ b’xejn il-PN ilu kwazi 25 sena fil-gvern!
If a frame up was indeed the case – and most clues point in that direction – I can attest that the police were not the perpetrators but the unsuspecting victims of that frame up.
I recall first hand the enthusiasm of the investigating officers following the ‘tip’. At the time, this was a justification of sorts since it had long been established that certain elements within the PN were engaged in staging violent events on their own party to blame it on Labour – indeed, Malta’s very own false-flag operations perpetrated not by the government of the day in some ‘strategy of tension’ to prop up police and state powers, but by the party in opposition, bent on playing the ultimate victim while creating civil unrest.
Hopefully, the skewed history you and your ilk have poured down everyone’s throat will one day be rectified.
[Daphne – Oh for God’s sake, Kevin. Declare your interest: you were a policeman; you are married to a Labour candidate whose two brothers were also policemen; and you are a committed conspiracy theorist.]
“Strategy of tension” eh?
I can understand your urge to use a fancy phrase you picked up from the Italian media but with all due respect you’re spouting the usual nonsense.
By your “logic”, those SAG policemen firing tear gas rounds and live ammunition at people attending PN meetings were only following Eddie Fenech Adami’s orders.
Kev, you claim that “. . . it had long been established that certain elements within the PN were engaged in staging violent events on their own party to blame it on Labour . .”
Established by whom, exactly? The little green men from Mars who are always talking to you, perhaps? You can hear their voices, right?
What you are saying is that the PN shot Raymond Caruana to frame the MLP, then they organised another frame-up to make the police appear as if they had organised a frame-up. A simple straightforward theory.
Mind you, I wouldn’t surprised if the CIA-Mossad (you know about them) consulted the PN when they were planning to bring down the Twin Towers.
“I can attest”
Ar’hemm, hej. Why should anyone care about your testimony if you’re only going to hint darkly about the bits that fascinate you?
Ha ha! Are you serious, Kev?
No he isn’t. Because if he was he’d talk about the conspiracy at the time within the Force.
Ask kev this – if it was true that the police were not to blame for the frame up, then how come the police involved, particularly one scene of the crime officer known as il-Hobzna, admitted to having lied ‘under orders’ from a superior officer of his, an inspector.
How come then, he was asked about having obeyed this illegal order in court? kev knows exactely what I’m talking about here…so tell him to cut the crap.
It had been establised eh? Who were these people? How come the Labour media never makes any mention of them?
Civil unrest kev, eh?
Like the unsuspecting victims the police and their friends in Zejtun happened to suffer at the hands of these agent provocateurs right?
In fact all those injured at Tal-Barrani were in fact attacked by their own fellow nationalists, whilst the Police and Zejtun residents looked on incredoulously, questioning themselves how Nationalists could possibly do this to their own kind…
…tut-tut-tut…..
Investigation and prosecution is what I used to do towards the end of the last century. It is not exactly an ‘interest to declare’ (do I give a twat’s prick?) as much as an insight into lots of things you don’t even know you should know.
‘Conspiracy’, meanwhile, is what has shaped events worldwide since time immemorial. Before theorising, however, one needs to investigate and establish facts based on admissible evidence, after which it ceases to be just ‘theory’.
In your case, ‘fact’ is only when the government-parotting media tell you it is so (and I’m not talking local here; the local stand-ins – or is it stand-ups? – get their EU and global news from the corporate media; the rest is on partisan lines and of Lilliputian calibre).
So, to further declare my interests: I saw first-hand, over a four-year period, how the Soviet media used to appear pluralistic, investigative and critical, even to the most cynical of Soviet citizens, so strong the illusion was.
And there’s also a near-decade’s worth of experience in the political-media field within the European Parliament, which does not necessarily cover Karmenu Vella’s yachting habits or the magistrate’s mangled lingerie.
I do watch The Box, however, mainly to see what you’re all being told and not told. Nowadays, I watch the BBC in the same enjoyable vein as I used to watch Programma Vremya in my student days. It falls under ‘entertainment’, just like this blog.
To paraphrase Raegan, your problem is not that you are ignorant, but that you know so much that isn’t so.
Ah, the Kev never fails to disappoint. How about revealing your privileged sources, Kev, for the enlightenment of the masses? You know, the ones that tell you what we’re all not being told.
Kevin Ellul Bonici, was either one of your brothers-in-law (Sharon’s brothers) present when Pietru Pawl Busuttil was wrongfully arrested? Just wondering!
@ Kevin: How do you explain the fact that in a photo taken by the policemen themselves, during the first search at Pietru Pawl’s farm, the wall on which the sack with the sub-machine gun was found was not there, while during the second search it was there? The police didn’t not leave the farmhouse unguarded in meantime. So it must have been either put there by a policeman or by someone with their blessing. The police were no victims, they were shoulder to shoulder with the labourite thugs, as can be documented by numerable photos and endless witnesses.
Kev can’t explain anything without a conspiracy theory. You’d imagine this one was right up his street. But, then again, truth is *so* a nineteenth century concept.
Kevvy, amazing, you continue to be an unmitigated asshole.
Definitely not the brightest crayon in the box, this Kev.
Don’t talk like that about people you disagree with. Just because we don’t agree with someone doesn’t make him stupid. In fact kev is a highly intelligent and articulate individual – which is, in fact, what makes the way he talks so painful…to me at least.
Kev, so it was the opposition at the time that was creating civil unrest! So by the same conspiracy mind of yours it would be the people and opposition parties in Egypt that are creating the unrest in their country!
Give us a break.
u mhux Chocolate Break (remember that one, a Wagon Wheel rip off).
If you’re so omnisapient, kev, why don’t you tell us the “true” story yourself? You know, to “rectify” it.
@ Marku – ‘Strategy of tension’ is a well-known term describing a recurring occurrence in history, mostly over the past hundred years. The Bolsheviks did it. Hitler did it. Mussolini did it. Former President Cossiga said the Italian State did it when he was state affairs minister… And you think no one else did it. Fair enough. Don’t blame me for your lack of knowledge and insight.
As to your perception of my logic, I wrote nothing of that nonsense.
@ Antoine – What can I say? Even buffoonery requires talent and wit.
@ La Redoute – Yes, I can attest to what I wrote.
@ Ian – Ho, ho, ho, yes I am.
@ willywonka – I don’t recall the case you mention. It could have been an irrelevant detail, even if related. I’m assuming this emerged during the PPB case, right?
But by the same token, how come, then, no one was charged for the frame up?
As to why the PL media never mentions this, you’ll have to ask them. They do go with the flow, no doubt about that. It’s ‘New Labour’, you see. And yet, this is known in many circles. I remember Charles Mangion had implied the staged-event ‘theory’ some eight years ago.
Bottom line: it’s the victor’s version of history that currently prevails. That still does not make it fact and it is still very recent history.
@ Randolph – That’s the stuff of conspiracy non-theories. Great stuff for defence lawyers, mind you, but explainable in a 101 ways.
@ Hairy Purdie – Helu e! Qas haqq il-klikkjatura ta’ Daphne biex dehret l-analizi anali tieghek.
@ Reuben Scicluna – It’s best for smart-Alecs not to be too auto-bio in their wise-cracks.
@ Troy – “By the same token” you’re your grandma’s aunt.
@ Macduff – A comment based on insight and experience does not make me omnisapient. But be my guest.
One thing I’m definitely NOT going to do is enter into a discussion with children and twats. I mean, just look at the comments above. You wouldn’t think that some of these buffoons are over forty.
I understand that this blog excels in flippancy, and that ‘Entertainment Above Information’ is its motto, but I thought I’d add a qualified insight to the prevalent chatter.
I myself investigated one major bomb incident and was involved in the investigation of a few others. The circumstantial evidence is bewildering even if one ignores the pattern and assesses each case individually. This is not to say that ALL violent incidents were PN-staged, but there is a more-or-less identifiable number that are.
Perhaps, Macduff, I WILL be the one to rectify the myth, after all. I have a backlog of things to do, but I plan to live into my hundreds anyway.
“One thing I’m definitely NOT going to do is enter into a discussion with children and twats.”
That much is evident. Why else do you drop in here for a discussion?
The amazing thing about you, Kev, is that you presume to know where everyone gets their information. Now that’s something for a conspiracy theorist to get his investigative teeth into.
kev, why no person was charged for the frame-up shall remain, I am convinced, a mystery.This doesn’t mean it wasn’t a frame-up, does it?
This is like saying that one who is not found guilty of committing a crime is necessarily innocent of having committed it. If you have this sort of world-view, and i know you don’t, then you’d be rather dim – which I know you’re not.
kev: Besides “strategy of tension” you should also have included “years of lead”.
Kev: well I have already given two reasons. The only other reason I can think of is that someone could have made his way into the farm, at night, while the police were guarding the place and placed it there without them noticing.
If this is what really happened, though highly improbable considering how heavily the farm was guarded, then the police face another accusation: that of clophopping ineptitude. What about the other 98 reasons?
Who wouldn’t be extremely proud of a political party so endowed with such unsavory characters?
The (M)LP should hang its head in shame and make an unconditional apology to the whole nation and not try to make us forget the past, and worse, attempt to rewrite history.
For those young enough and fortunate enough not to have lived, much less remember those horrid years, open your eyes, know the history of the LP and its present attempt to reach back to those times by resurrecting former ministers who are being given the task of writing the next electoral programme and reject them offhand.
Take pride in your country and yourselves and deny the Labour party your vote after having nearly destroyed liberty and basic human rights. Even if they succeed to win the next election, you would still have a clear conscience for not abetting them.
Thanks, Daphne, for the details which filled the missing gaps and which had me puzzled for many years.
A lot of people have commented that the young voters of today don’t really believe what happened in those infamous days.
I lived through them but I am ashamed to admit that I have forgotten many of the details.
It is shameful that the policemen chasing J.Psaila were not interrogated to give an explanation of the incident.
How they did not succeed to get hold of a crippled person remains a mystery. Did he really fall or was pushed?
That is the question never answered.
I made my son read this but it did not impress him much.
Reality is much different to imagination.
He asked me about why were the culprits not rounded up and brought to court especially those that committed crimes after the 87 election? And why was the Nationalist government so lenient with them?
For the same reason why the Nationalist Party seems to have amnesia about these terrible times…because of the old chestnut of ‘national reconcilation’. The nation will never move forward if we choose not to acknowledge the past
So what do you suggest Mama? Keep the country locked in a circle of hate, as the Nationalsts seem hell bent on doing to ensure their grip on power remains as strong as ever? Is this what the PN has come to?
Ah, but Joseph Muscat ‘apologised’ for everything in the past.
And then proceeded to recreate it by resurrecting the dinosaurs who helped him get into the hot seat.
For true reconciliation to take place, there has got to be willingness on both sides of the divide. There are too many open wounds for there to be any reconciliation at this stage, and the events are still to fresh in the memories of those who lived through those terrible times.
I firmly believe that, had the newly elected Nationalist government brought those thugs to justice, nationwide violence would have broken out, on a scale the likes of which would have never been seen in times of “peace”.
These people smashed everything in their path and terrorised people just because they didn’t share their political – ha ha – ideals.
Sometimes people were picked on because they didn’t support the MLP (as it was called then) vociferously enough.
Can you even begin to imagine what would happen if these cowboys were tried, found guilty and imprisoned?
Perhaps you have forgotten the Dirty Harry style shoot out at that infamous Zejtun wedding.
Have you already forgotten that even as recently as the last general election il-Qahbu and il-Qattus were still terrorising people in the vicinity of polling stations?
These people have managed to terrorise a whole country.
“National reconciliation” is a fancy word for “cutting your losses” in this case. It’s all very nice to act tough behind a nick and a keyboard.
I’m sure you were there, at the forefront, getting beaten up or getting your shop window smashed in on a quasi-regular basis, or front door kicked in just for fun.
You forget one thing. The MLP had virtually the whole Dockyard workforce – their shock troops – at their call and beck. Remember the Curia, anyone?
Those guys were not thugs. They were terrorists in the truest sense of the word.
Fenech Adami and Demarco, I think, have proven themselves to be extremely wise in choosing the path they did. They walked the fine line between justice and revenge with admirable skill.
Another interesting, and mysterious person in this horrible story is ex Police inspector Joseph Pico.
Pico had testified in court that he was never present at the farm of Peter Paul Busuttil during the search, when photos of the scene of the crime office of the police had revealed otherwise.
Relilable sources say that the anonymous telephone caller who told the criminal investigations department at police headquarters where the firearm was to be found that murdered Raymond Caruana was ringing from Pico’s office inside HQ..
Yes – what happened to Pico?
Sounds like an Agatha Christie’s novel but the sad thing is that it actually happened and no one was brought to justice. Did il-Pupa die between 1996 and 1998?
He died at dawn on 26th November 1997.
Daphne
I am old enough to distinctly remember Pietru Pawl Busuttil being brought to Court by none other than John Rizzo – who I assume was the prime investigating officer on this case.
What I cannot ever fathom is how he was promoted to Commissioner by the PN. I have always assumd that he had his hands dirtied by this case – and in a way I can understand Alfred Sant referring to him as “paraventu”
The mind (mine at least) boggles
Any enlightenment on this?
[Daphne – When he was made Commissioner, I had written a very angry article for The Malta Independent. I disagreed completely. My point was that whatever his policing abilities might be, he was obviously very heavily involved in the Pietru Pawl Busuttil case and was much compromised by this fact. ‘Just following orders’, if that were the case, compromises him too. Men of principle and integrity do not use that excuse, and police commissioners have to be men of principle and integrity, as George Grech found to his cost. It must have struck Grech as particularly ironic that he had to resign because of a mess with a whore only to be replaced by a man with a mess with a reprehensible political frame-up for murder.]
Himmler, Goering, Goebels, Mengele, Eichmann………they were all following orders too.
Thanks for the answer, I had forgotten you wrote about him but I think my mistrust of the guy must go back subconsciously to your article (perhaps you had even included the photo I mentioned in your write up)…Never trusted the boys in blue and never will
Did Alfred Sant really refer to John Rizzo as “paravendu”?
[Daphne – Yes, of course. Don’t you remember? It was during the general election campaign in 2008. The man has a tendency to get hysterical under pressure.]
You are absolutely right. It had slipped my mind.
Rizzo should make way for someone younger, with more brains, and less of a past.
Mhux ta’ b’xejn li l-korp tal-pulizija spicca.
The Box
During the Golden Days, Labour used to try and drum into people’s minds that the bombs were planted by the Nationalist Party.
They had accused Martin Gaffarena, at the time a PN canvasser, of planting a bomb at the Labour Party club in Kirkop.
“Mysteriously” this bomb never exploded, and therefore, the police found good evidence, including a finger-print on the tin containing the explosives.
Gaffarena brought in a finger-print expert to prove that he was framed by the police.
I am very interested in what you are saying about John Rizzo.
I also saw the photo when Pietru Pawl Busuttil was taken to court. He was escorted to court by two huge police officers. One of them was John Rizzo, who at the time carried the rank of inspector and was secretary to Laurence Pullicino, and another huge guy Ricchie Cauchi, who carried the rank of a sergeant stationed at the security branch at the time.
The security branch was directly under the responsability of Laurence Pullicino. Cauchi was also promoted to sergeant major during PN administration.
I think these two people were assigned to escort Pietru Pawl Busuttil due to there huge physical structure, to make a show of force and impress more the people that Pietru Pawl was a hardened criminal.
This was the Pullicino style. We have to remember that at Pietru’s farm not only the fire arm was allegedly found, but also explosive and drugs (haxixa).
However, I believe that the brains behind the frame-up were Joseph Psaila and Joseph Pico. It also came out that Psaila was also responsible for the frame-up on Martin Gaffarena.
Il-Pupa was injured by a bomb explosion which went off as he started to drive his parked car in a Zejtun housing estate.
After this incident he said he converted and started to convey his message to the public in general.
After some time a lot of bars in Birzebbuga started to experience theft from their cigarettes and amusing machines after they closed to business.
The police were alerted and on one particular night a policeman was passing by Johnnies bar and heard noises coming from inside.
The door had a small inspection glass and as he looked in he saw il-Pupa taking money from the machine.He informed Mobile Squad, and il-Pupa ran up to the roof top and tried to descend down a water drain pipe and the pipe gave way.
Riya, frame up like that of Martin Gaffarena were common during Labour administration. Even, a similar frame up was that of Joe Axiaq, a teenager at that time known as il-Banana, who was accused of planting the bomb that went of at the Safi Labour Club.
He was dragged out of bed during the same night. One thing I know today , do not mention police to him.
No. His brother Ray was known as il-banana. Joe Axiaq we used to call “il-Jai” because he resembled that boy who used to accompany Tarzan.
That was another frame up par excellence!
It could be that the police were not the perpetrators of the frame-up as well. However, it is very unlikely that no one in the police knew nothing about what was happening.
It is also a mystery for the police to be exactly in the location where il-Pupa was trying to carry out a burglary. Is this a coincidence too? Nothing much was said about that attempted burglary. But the men trying to do it meant a lot.
Those where the bad time of bombs and guns like it was happening in Italy and mostly in Sicily by Mafia, now is the time of doing same things in a nice and legal way.
As far as I know according to statistics we’re still one of the EU countries with most number of illiterate poeple and brain washed with politics.
I will never vote for PL because of those times, prefer not to vote at all. By today, after the change, we should have been much much better.
Where all those millions have gone! Our Islands had to be paradise by now and not we’r still driving on d moon etc..etc..etc
Not voting means that you shall anyway have a government but one that you had no say about. Now if you consider that as an intelligent decision…….
The usual Maltese bipolar paradigm: If you criticise Labour, you must be Nationalist. If you agree with Daphne, she must be your relative. If you’re ashamed of your working class roots, you must be pépé.
If you call yourself ‘H.P. Baxxter’, you must be Daphne.
Huh?
The usual Maltese bipolar paradigm. If you use a pseudonym, you must be Daphne.
La Redoute, H.P. Baxxter has two favourite weapons, his pen and his UZI. Daphne’s weapons are her pen and her ‘no nonsense allowed’ stance.
Baxxter is definitely not Daphne.
The Uzi is a useless piece of 1950s junk. My favourite weapon is the HK 417, German engineering at its finest, which allows us to engage the Taleban at ranges in excess of 600m. The downside is that one rifle costs as much as the entire Maltese annual defence budget.
Kev, I think you never went to Zejtun pre-1987, maybe you lived in Mellieha.
Il-Pupa driving around in a red Ford Escort, It-Toto in a Landrover, Il-Pajka in his blacksmith’s van, and the list goes on.
At that time they terrorized people and made it a point that they are untouchable, and then when a bomb or a shooting occurs, we blame the Nationalists.
The Nationalists couldn’t even buy a copy of In-Nazzjon from the newsagency with being reported to IL-Macina , let alone fabricate a bomb, or carry a machine gun.
Kev won’t reply. He is a Very Important Person in the Brussels suburbs who has no time for what is going on in Lilliput.
And he never reads this blog.
If the police were not the perpetrators of the frame-up, but on the otherhand they did not realise it was a frame-up, they were really stupid.
This makes it evident tha the police were only good at beating people and not to investigate.
Even we, as normal citizens of the public realised that there was something going wrong. So how come no one in the Police force had the same thoughts? But no, they made sure that a big show was made with Pietru Pawl.
And I ask another question. Who were the people escorting Pietru Pawl in hospital when they attempted to throw Pietru down from the window? Why did they want to do this? The more they lie the worse.
It has long been at the back of my mind that the local cops rely more on signed statements than on investigations let scientific investigation a la CSI.
Maybe that’s why they were contrary to arrested persons consulting their lawyer let alone the lawyer being present during the interview by the police.
Why are interrogations not recorded; the statements are written by the police not the arrested person who generally signs anything put in front of him just to get the hell out of there. What happens if the arrested person refuses to answer any questions or sign any statement ?
Anyone closely acquainted with Eddie Fenech Adami at the time when he toppled the KMB government would know that he adamantly refused to allow the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction, even though it made him look weak in the eyes of many who had scores to settle.
The slightest attempt to retaliate resulted in prompt prosecution of any identified offender. That had been unheard of during the Mintoff-KMB era..
Yes, fair enough, I’m sure many wanted to give those baboons the sort of treatment they had been giving others. However, many more, for example my parents, simply wanted them to face justice, and not revenge.
They have remained without closure for those terrible times, and then you get idiots like chavsRus rubbing salt in their wounds.
There might indeed have been resentment, even further violence by those thugs but in the long run we would ALL have been better off.
Labour would have HAD to reform and we would not have to be sick to the stomach hearing people like Karmenu Vella, Joe Grima (both would today be distant memories) and Joseph Muscat who even had the sheer brass neck to say labour didn’t f&@K up education in Malta
I don’t mean to sound rude, Dr Saliba, but do you all turn into Amish-type preachers when you grow old? You sound just like my dad. Retaliation this, and forgiveness that… Justice is not retaliation. It is the very basis of European democracy.
Is it a coincidence that the latest song by Winter Moods (lead singer Ivan Grech is Josette Grech Hamilton’s brother)is called “Forward to the Past”?
We can’t forget that Lorry Sant treated his friends well. Many of them received nice long-lasting gifts, like houses. Perhaps that’s why they refer to that time as the Golden Years.
I wonder towards which party, either the PL or the PN, this article is causing the most resentment.
I find it interesting how many people are doubtful—and rightly so—about the truthiness of Psaila’s accidental death as reported by the police, and Dr. George Vella’s professional secrecy stand, but then they don’t question the national reconciliation explanation as the reason to why most of the people involved in the various incidents weren’t brought to justice.
Even assuming it was a genuinely good intentioned policy, the least that can be said is that it was an epic failure; the bitterness many people still feel is the greatest proof of this.
Daphne is just a puppet on a string. are you being paid by gonzipn to create all this nonsense? ex pn.
[Daphne – No. Why, is it usual for people to be paid to have a really poor opinion of the Labour Party?]]
It is usually necessary to be paid to have a good opinion of the Labour Party.
Ray, Daphne has no strings attached to the PN, and you must be really dumb to think so.
You stated that you’re ex pn, and that makes you what? A puppet on a string?
Great comment by Antoine Vella in answer to David Friggieri’s article ‘Between The Godfather and Cape Fear’ on Maltatoday. Here it is:
“David, d’you what’s wrong with you? You’re bored.
You’re bored with your easy, humdrum life and want some excitement, some Tunisian/Egyptian flavour.
Well, I’ve lived through times that were as bad as those that Egyptians lived under Mubarak and I can tell you that, thank you very much, I’d rather do without any more mass meetings, tear gas, mobs and Fosos filled with heaving masses of protesters.
Perhaps my generation robbed you of the excitement of fighting for your rights but you must forgive us because we were in good faith. We honestly thought that you might enjoy having your human and civil rights guaranteed. We imagined you might be thankful that you don’t go through hell to acquire them.
Antoine Vella”
See for yourself:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/blogs/david-friggieri/between-the-godfather-and-cape-fear
Off on a tangent. I know it is the Guardian;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/10/marine-le-pen-cameron-multiculturalism
As for U -turns, here is another one :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/09/russia-deportation-guardian-journalist
Somebody needs to draw up a list of “mysterious deaths” such as Lino Cauchi, Lino Manfre, etc.
Silvio Parnis strikes again :
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110209/local/bastions-restoration-well-underway-minister
In re-writing Malta’s “history” the wise guys sghould not forget to include Mintoff’s disgusting speech ata Qui si Sana Labour meeting, attacking his leader Dr. Paul Boffa, with disgusting insults. It was a real shame to hear these personal attacks – I was there- I know.
Daphne, we need a post about this. I think this is a very sensible decision which shows that the PN is still capable of devising intelligent political strategies.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110210/local/referendum-if-draft-law-is-approved
By the looks of it, the police are not accountable to anyone. It seems that they can do anything with impunity and in full contempt of the people who they are supposed to protect.
The Malta police force is a legacy of the Mintoff years of terror and the PN was unwilling to rock the boat. Will the police force change under Labour? The answer is NO.
All the readers commenting about the police force are just spitting in the air.
I’m glad you mentioned Ganni l-Pupa. He was an agent provocateur paid by the PN to cause trouble.
Iz-zejt jitla’ f’wiċċ l-ilma.
[Daphne – Tell me, chavs. Do you still believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy? So Karmenu Farrugia was a Trojan horse, paid by the PN to drive Karmenu Vella’s car.]
chavsRus, you do not know anything about il-Pupa as we used to know and fear in Zejtun. Fascists like you are known as “nostalgici”.
Didn’t you ever see Ganni on TV, with Fenech Adami? They were like two long-lost lovers.
Just as the people who carried outr the fake frame up of Pietru Pawl Busittil were PN agents.
[Daphne – The frame-up wasn’t fake. It was real.]
Why all this hystetria?
Is there something we don’t know?
Is it JPO? Or are the polls showing something really, but really dismal for the PN?
[Daphne – Not very bright, are you. It’s your party leader’s announcement of his shadow cabinet, plus the news that Karmenu Vella is going to write the government plan for 2013 to 2018. The reaction has been massive from people myu sort of age and older. We have direct
Let us recap:
1) PP Busuttil was “framed”
2) The “frame-up” was so amateurish it seemed to be meant to be found out.
3) It did great harm to the MLP
4) It was of enormous benefit to the PN
5) The perpetrators were kept in the force and promoted by subsequent PN goverments.
You don’t have to be an Einstein to work it out.
[Daphne – Chavs, use your head. Is there anything the Labour Party has ever done or is doing still that is NOT amateurish? Name one thing, please.]
Chav, are your implying that Guido Demarco was both defending Pietru Pawl Busuttil in court, and having him thrown out of a window?
PN agents! My, my, chavsRus – you’re a really sorry arse.
During the Mintoffian regime today was one of the festive holidays taken away by the government without any compensation and I believe without any consultation with the unions.
But the church did not change the feast into a ferial day. In fact it was a day of obligation and we had to go to mass.
The same happened with the 29th June. He did not to away with the 8 December or the Bormlizi would have been heavily critical. Meditate gente! Meditate!
Wrong, Jo. il-Kuncizzjoni was also removed with the feasts of St Joseph the Worker, Imnarja, Sette Giugno, St Paul Shipwrecked and if it were for him he would have removed Christmas also, because he hated it.
Please note that sometimes he had to put up with the Holy Week ceremonies of the Birgu church which is right opposite the 31st March monument.
While the soldiers are parading, the processions behind black crosses of the ‘seba visti’ are sometimes seen passing on the church parvis with the sober Lent hymns and prayers heard in the background.
I was sitting in my car last Saturday morning listening to the radio. I heard the Police Commisioner stating that he was proud to be a member of one of the Corps established by the than Labour goverment.
[Daphne – The police corps was not established by the Labour government, but by the British colonial administration in the 19th century. That is why it is the British policing system that we use – or try to.]
Something important Mr Rizzo failed to mention was that at that time there were no jobs available for the youngsters who just left specialised schools.
Today it is on the contrary, not an easy job to enter either the University of Malta, or the MCAST.
Anyway I read one of the previous messages which stated that there are people who change for the best- I am sure Mr. Rizzo is one of them. He gets everyone respect for the position he occupies now.
So let’s look forward without failing not to forgret those dreadful times.
When Rizzo spoke about “the corps” he was referring to a labour corps: Dirghajn il-Maltin or Pijunieri or some other one.
This photo manipulation was inspired by your article in today’s paper.
[IMG]http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/A_V11/Progressiv2.jpg[/IMG]
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/A_V11/Progressiv2.jpg
They want credit for Air Malta, Sea Malta etc. How is it they never mention Thug Malta.
This deserves to be the “Comment of the week”!
Il-Pupa was paid by the Nationalist Party? Intelligent thinking! Even the SMU Police were paid by the Nationalists? And Anglu Farrugia, when he arrested Daphne and her friends and had them prosecuted without evidence, was he paid by the Nationalist Party, too?
What about the bomb placed at the entrance of the St. Julians PN Club? Did the Nationalists put it there specifically when there was a party of the PN youths? U mhux hekk tghid.
I was arrested that night (around midnight) and taken to the police HQ and interrogated, just because I happened to be driving by as soon as it exploded on the rocks a few metres behind me. Instead of stopping, I accelerated and stopped near the Carmelites church to see what had happened.
It is not Daphne who is creating all this but the Labour Party’s revisiting of the Golden Days of Labour.
chavs Rus
‘Just as the people who carried out the fake frame up of Pietru Pawl Busittil were PN agents’.
My friend, are you aware that ex police inspector Joseph Pico, who gave false testimony in court about the frame-up on Pietru Pawl Busuttil, is now the secretary of the Ghaxaq PL committee?
The tip-off of the frame-up came form his office at the Police HQ. You are not aware of the facts. You can’t imagine the sufferings of a person when he is framed.
Watching the Egyptian situation…it’s like Malta in 1987…people fighting for freedom!
Well we are still fighting for freedom in Malta – press censorship, divorce, police abuse of power, inefficient legal system etc.
Labour comes to power…. the list will of course grow longer!
Red Rose
‘Somebody needs to draw up a list of “mysterious deaths” such as Lino Cauchi, Lino Manfre, etc.’
and Wilfred Cardona.
Yes – I had forgotten that name, that is why I did not mention him; but he was also in my mind – and prayers
Karmenu Vella seems to worry Daphne & your PN friends at tal Pieta. no matter how hard you work and all your personal attacks targeting PL……………You are all heading for a massive defeat. i will contribute for that. ex pn
[Daphne – I rather think it’s the other way round, Ray. Daphne worries Karmenu Vella and his Labour friends. That’s why they’re constantly hoofing after me, to the extent of contacting the prime minister and every single cabinet minister with questions about me.]
Ray, the things you write on this blog – it seems like Daphne is worrying you a lot.
And please don’t give us that ex pn shit.
Ray – Daphne has nothing to be ashamed of, but your Labour mob stinks to high heaven. Let them win the next election and just watch the reaction.
red nose. i really admire your christian morals. “your Labour mob stinks”. sejjer quddies ghada? itlob mahfra. maybe qed tibenefika mil penzjoni li ghamel Mintoff. ex pn
Ray – Stop writing ‘ex pn’ at the end of every comment you post. You’re not fooling anyone. You’re clearly a Laburist through and through and have always voted for them.
Snoopy
Pico was dismissed from the Police and arraigned before the court like many others when the PN cleaned up the police force of the regime of the Golden Days.
It was impossible to know exactly what went on at the Police Headquarters when Laurence Pullicino was commissioner. The police of the Golden Days did not only harshily beat and frame people, but also murders took place within the walls of the Police HQ.
Reliable sources say that a number of fingerprints of some PN activists were found at Police HQ, kept there ‘just in caes’ and God knows what would have happened had the PN not been elected in the 1987 election. And it was neve3r a certainty that the PN would be, despite the terrible times.
The PN could have done better, yes, but you will not be right to say that they did nothing to put the police force on the right track. Not everything is perfect but we are much better. Lets hope those days will never come again.
Clarification:
The corps I referred to are the famous Korpi which the Labour government introduced – I have to thank Mr Vella for specifying what John Rizzo was speaking about: li hu kien kostett li jidhol f’wiehed mill korpi, ghaliex ma kienx hawn fejn tahdem- ma inhiex cert jekk hux Dirghajn l-Maltin jew xi korp iehor.
The thread running through is fascinating, Daphne. However, one curious thing is why they picked the farm of Pietru Pawl Busuttil?
There was and is no doubt he was innocent, but why not place the murder weapon in a house in Sliema? It would have looked even more of a certainty that the Nationalists had done it, though probably as credible.
Could it be the weapon was hidden somewhere in the area. The farm it was found in is on the outskirts of Safi, near Zurrieq.
May I quote a bit of song lyric written by Eddie Vedder, front man of the US rock band, Pearl Jam;
“he who forgets will be destined to remember”.
I am 38, and I will never forget that Labour deprived me of the best possible education, bullied my father at work just because he was a nNationalist and curtailed the freedom of speech of its opponents.
Good luck Malta!
Toto, Toto … People don’t really change, do they?
http://f1plus.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20020906/local/flashback-to-tal-barrani-riots-in-1986
Friday, 6th September 2002
Flashback to Tal-Barrani riots in 1986
Sharon Spiteri
Three conditionally discharged for their part
Three men were yesterday conditionally discharged for a year for their part in the Tal-Barrani riots in 1986 when a group of masked men joined special police in blocking Nationalist Party supporters from entering Zejtun for a political meeting.
Toninu Carabott, 54, of Zejtun, better known as it-Totó, Edwin Bartolo, 51 of Zejtun, better known as il-Qahbu, and Godwin Schembri, 54, of Birkirkara, were found guilty of seriously injuring Rose Gauci, whose nose was bitten, and Salvu Debono who was shot in the knee.
They were also found guilty of slightly injuring 10 men and five women and committing the crimes in the context of an assembly of three or more people, two of whom were carrying firearms to create terror and alarm.
They were also found guilty of causing more than Lm500 damage to 15 cars and one van and causing Lm2,675 worth of damage to public property.
They were also found guilty of wearing a mask or disguise in public, uttering obscene or indecent words and blocking roads.
Alfred Desira, 52 of Zejtun, better known as l-Indjan, was acquitted of all the charges. Joseph Zahra, 43, of Zejtun, had originally also been charged with the four men but the case against him had been thrown out at the conclusion of the compilation of evidence.
Magistrate Dennis Montebello yesterday remarked that he had found the three convicted men’s explanations ‘ridiculous’ particularly since the evidence against them was overwhelming .
He heard how the Constitutional Court had authorised the Nationalist Party to hold a meeting in Zejtun and preparations were made for November 30, 1986.
The party’s general secretary, then Louis Galea, had alerted the police commissioner of the party’s fear that some ‘extremists’ could try to obstruct the meeting.
But some people were already working on blocking the roads with stones and rubble during the night of November 29 and the authorities did not seem to take any action, not even when the work continued in their presence the next morning.
When the PN supporters approached, a small group of men tried to hold them back but eventually retreated behind a truck. The fully equipped Special Mobile Unit police had moved in followed by over a hundred people, some of them masked and armed. The mounted police brought up the rear.
Magistrate Montebello said he had heard how the police had sprayed tear gas. Shots were fired and people were injured, some seriously.
The meeting had to be abandoned and the Nationalist Party supporters retreated followed by the mixed army.
They left a lot of damage in their wake although Magistrate Montebello ruled one could not exclude that some PN supporters also caused some damage, particularly to the cars of the police stationed at Tal-Barrani.
The magistrate found the defendants’ explanations weak and their allegation that they had left the scene before the incidents started unbelievable.
He however acquitted Desira because his explanation wrought serious doubts as to the identity of the person in the photos exhibited in court.
Desira exhibited a picture of a certain Joseph Butler and the court confirmed that the resemblance was extraordinary. Desira claimed he had gone trapping and had not been anywhere near the revolt.
Magistrate Montebello acquitted him after ruling that the evidence against Desira was scant and that the picture created serious doubts about his involvement.
In deciding on a punishment suitable for the other three men, the magistrate noted how the events took place with the tacit approval of the police who blocked the road, fired shots and tear gas and basically allowed armed and masked men to assist them.
He noted that the men had been facing a maximum three-year jail term and a fine but ruled that the circumstances of the incident were peculiar and aberrant.
This did not excuse the defendants’ behaviour but one did have to take into consideration that they had been assisting the authorities or assisted by them and this was an extenuating circumstance although their behaviour had been definitely abusive.
Magistrate Montebello also noted that the case had been going on for a long time and the defendants had been placed under bail restrictions for all these years.
He also remarked that the incident had been tied to the political atmosphere of the time and there had been a change in the conditions and circumstances of all three defendants.
I’m posting the links below because I think that it is important for people – especially the younger generation – to remember that yes, history does repeat itself if we allow it to do so:
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2009/06/06/like-1980s-batwing-sleeves-il-qahbu-is-back/
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2009/06/06/il-qahbu-is-on-the-run/
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2009/06/07/and-now-hes-turned-himself-in/
For those you can’t remember, or who have never heard of him before, Il-Qahbu was one of the Labour thugs in the 1980s, along with the likes of l-Indjan, it-Toto, il-Pupa, etc..
Gunmen on Malta Kill Opposition Backer
NYT December 8,
1986http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/08/world/around-the-world-gunmen-on-malta-kill-opposition-backer.html?scp=81&sq=malta&st=cse
A supporter of Malta’s opposition Nationalist Party has been killed by shots fired from a passing car, the police said.
The slaying of Raymond Caruana, 25 years old, took place Friday night, six days after 23 people were wounded in street clashes between supporters of the Nationalist Party and the governing Socialist Party.
The police said the shooting followed a reception at the Nationalist club in Gudia, 10 miles from Valletta.
Thirteen shots were fired at the club from a passing car, shattering a glass door and killing Mr. Caruana, the police said. Five other men in the club escaped harm.
Kev.
Let us assume that what you are saying is true, and not like Daphne said that you are a consipiracy theorist.
Can you explain to us the incident at the arena in Floriana when the police came and made a mess of all the people there after a mass meeting? Was this incident instigated by Nationalist supporters, or more so by the Nationalist Party?
I can tell you that on that day ex Police Inspector Charles Cassar, in charge of the famous SMU, aka Caspitina, went back to Police HQ. happy to inform his superiors that the event was disbanded by teargas.
Many people were injured as on their way to their coaches from the Arena to St Anne Street they found the SMU squad hidden under the bushes at the Argotti area and made a mess of them. I was there Kev.
…and who retired that police official from the Police Corps?
Riya – one problem with you people is that you see everything in black and white. I am not an apologist.
Not for Mintoff, not for Labour and definitely not for the police. I am trying to tell you people that it takes two to tango. Civil unrest is what the party in government did not want but was forced to face. Did it do a good job? Certainly not.
Ray Spiteri
‘Daphne is just a puppet on a string. are you being paid by gonzipn to create all this nonsense? ex pn.’
I know a person who used to occupy a very responsible position. One day this same person was interviewed by Daphne. Some time after, we met and he brought up the subject. He told me ‘that young woman is a walking encyclopidia’.
This was years ago so Daphne was only a young lady. And you say she’s a puppet and talking about nonsense? If you are not interested, what are you doing here?
You also say she is being paid. Mela dik hsibtha bhal tal-Labour. If you went with Labour it means that you like corruption, like them.
I am sure Kev also thinks that the wedding in Zejtun was ambushed by Nationalist thugs, too, and even the mess at the law courts. Now why would they bother to do that, when they were in government already by that time?
Kev had a cush job with the fraud squad. He never wore a uniform. He is a Labour hardliner like his wife and her brothers, Andy Ellul and John Ellul.
Kev thought the media in Moscow was pluralistic and investigative. He probably also thought that the Soviet government championed ‘the people’. That puts anything he says into perspective.
No, La Redoute, it is the Soviet citizens who used to think so. It appeared so to anyone who had no clue of the reality that lay beyond the Soviet illusion. This is where you and the Soviets meet – like them, within that tiny box you were unknowningly forced to inhabit, you think the corporate media is pluralistic and investigative.
From your (many) comments I can see that you have no clue of what I’m talking about. You haven’t (yet?) grasped the subject.
In one post you say: “How about revealing your privileged sources… You know, the ones that tell you what we’re all not being told.”
I have no priveleged sources. Every truth surfaces. But not all truths surface in the corporate media and less so on The Box. Most corporate-sourced truths are either half-truths or deceptive disinfo.
In today’s world, if a pin drops in Katmandu I don’t have to rely on the BBC to inform me about the real circumstances. If in doubt, I go to the actual sources – those closest to where it happened – or read what reliable investigative journalists have unearthed, which I can verify through the supplied links and sources.
But to do this you need to know how the system works – and by that I mean the WHOLE system, from the masses to the corporate media to the governments and their pyramidal puppetmasters (who are not as discreet as you might think).
And of course you need to know who the puppetmasters are – or at least what parameters define their existence and aims. You’d also need to know how they operate. How the deception works.
You also have to know what to look for, where to start looking, and how to discern the wheat from the chaff – which requires you knowing much of the above.
You are, of course, miles away, so it’s best to keep on ridiculing whatever you know nothing about.
So, let me see if I have understood you correctly. If you’re told that a pin dropped in Kathmandu, you would go there to verify the fact yourself.
A question: if a pin drops in Kathmandu and no one tells you about it, did it really happen?
Another question: how do you know that a report was investigative, that the journalist is reliable and that the given sources and links were not faked?
You see, your position is no different to anyone else’s.
Given that you are not omnipresent, you need to rely on someone else to tell you about the world outside your immediate experience.
Granted, critical judgement is necessary in all cases, and yours is demonstrably dubious.
Your talk about separating the wheat from the chaff, knowing where to look and what to look for rings hollow as long as you base your assessment of people you don’t know on what you read here and assume that that is the sum total of their interest, experience and understanding.
In your case, at least, it seems the chaff must be taken with the wheat as there is little to distinguish one from the other.
La Redoute – You sound like one Ms C Vella. Same conditioned mind. You’ll never get out of that cage. Not with that perception.
“In today’s world, if a pin drops in Katmandu I don’t have to rely on the BBC to inform me about the real circumstances. If in doubt, I go to the actual sources – those closest to where it happened – or read what reliable investigative journalists have unearthed, which I can verify through the supplied links and sources”
Kev, you contradict yourself in your arguments. Who decides who the reliable investigative journalists are? It all boils down to one simple thing. At the end of the day one is making choices of whom to trust and where to search for information. And if that happens to be you, I believe you will be very objective and impartial.
Kev.You need to get out a bit more. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Let’s try a little experiment, Kev. What’s happening in Egypt and how do you know that it’s true?
With Egypt it is clear that the Western-backed Mubarak (billions in military aid over many years) will be replaced by another Western-controlled puppet. Globalist-controlled El Baradei of the Muslim Brotherhood is the best option to hoodwink the majority. No ‘rogue government’ is expected to be allowed power – they’ve got enough destablising wars going on with Pakistan, Iran and Yemen long on the menu.
Bottom line – Mubarak’s police state may be gone, but the people will not fair any better economically.
Given that this conversation is about the media, truth and sources, you missed the main question, Kev: How do you know what’s going on in Egypt?
Let me make it simpler for you, by breaking the question down into its constituent parts.
1. The main news out of Egypt the past couple of days is that Mubarak resigned. How did you come to know about that?
2. Did you hunt Mubarak down to ask him personally whether your information was correct?
3. If you did not do that, why did you believe your source?
In 1984, Malta hielsa signed a 5-year agreement with Libya who pledged to provide arms and military training. That agreement, as well as the government’s political sympathies, put Malta firmly on Libya’s side in the event of any international conflict.
This was before the cold war had ended.
To put that magical military relationship into a bit of perspective, here’s a report by Alan Cowell on a celebratory parade in Libya, when that agreement agreement was still in force.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/03/world/the-talk-of-tripoli-the-innocents-from-abroad-hail-qaddafi.html?scp=465&sq=malta&st=nyt
Soldiers were in the forefront – both men and women in uniform – despite an edict Friday from the colonel abolishing the army and replacing it with ”the armed people.”
”The army has disappeared,” the announcer on Libyan television said as the parade rolled by, awash with banners of green, Libya’s national color.
Then there were floats and fine horses, cantankerous camels and waves of ”the armed people,” clad in green tunics and bandanas, toting Kalashnikov rifles, the workings of which seemed to thrill some of the newly armed people – young men who played delightedly with the slides, triggers and safety catches of their new, bulletless acquisitions.
And if you’re wondering afresh how we could ever have got ourselves into that sorry mess, you’ll find an explanation in the last paragraph. The person quoted in the last paragraph has a vote. And your vote is no more valuable than his.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/03/world/the-talk-of-tripoli-the-innocents-from-abroad-hail-qaddafi.html?scp=465&sq=malta&st=nyt
All those interviewed said their fare and other costs were paid by Libya, part of Colonel Qaddafi’s effort to promote an international organization of support, called the Mathaba, which seems designed to resemble the old Soviet Comintern.
Some of the visitors saw the whole issue in opportune terms.
”You had to wear the T-shirt to get off the boat,” said a Maltese man from the island of Gozo, who said he and a group of friends boarded the ship in Valletta not so much out of ideological commitment but because they wanted to visit a friend in Tripoli. So, he said, he wore the green and white T-shirt, and a green hat, too.
”So what?” he said. ”It’s a free holiday.”
All those who criticize Daphne have never come up with the word “liar”.
I am an old man – a very old man – and I have lived through those horrible years. I can tell you – on oath – that not one word written by Daphne is out of place.
Trying to silence her, I think, is a futile job, because she is really and truly writing about these events as they truly were and not as the Labour Party wishes it to be.
No water will be able to wash the dirty past of the Labour Party and by the way they write (on this blog) it seems that Labour has not changed at all
Now it is evident that Malta Today can cut a long story short and tell us exactly what happened with the case of the shooting at Tarxien PN club and Raymond Caruana’s murder. They are also in a very good position to issue the biography of il-Botom.
This story should be the final paragraph of the history of Labour’s Golden Days which should be entitled ‘The Murder of Raymond Caruana and the frame-up of Pietru Pawl Busuttil’.
However, the story continues with someone who is trying to leave the Maltese honest people in the dark of what actually happened in Tarxien and Gudja.
chavsRus says:
‘I’m glad you mentioned Ganni l-Pupa. He was an agent provocateur paid by the PN to cause trouble.
Iz-zejt jitla’ f’wiċċ l-ilma.’
Yes, you are right in saying that ‘Iz-zejt jitla’ f’wiċċ l-ilma’ provided that we have a helping hand from Julia Farrugia’s father il-Botom ex driver of il-famuz Pertit Karmenu Vella.
Now Pupa and Caqwes are both dead, and therefore all the evidence have been destroyed. Also the PL shadow minister Dr. Gearge Vella can contribute ‘biex iz-zejt jitla f’wicc l-ilma’.
If il-Pupa was a friend of Fenech Adami, as you wrongly state, why do not these people talk? Someone always wanted to keep the people in the dark about these atrocities, but we are all sure that it’s not the PN.
If you also believe that Daphne is paid by PN and the PN had its hand involved in the murder of Raymond Caruana, why would she bring these issues up on her blog? Your hypothesis does not make any sense, my friend.
Riya,you’re right,the hypothesis does not make any sence and neither does chavsRus.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/blogs/saviour-balzan/videoblog-in-defence-of-julia-farrugia
riya
kev, dak li kien il-Fraud Squad, dak li kien jaf jitkellem bir-Russu?
Fascinating read – thanks for this.
Can we see a similar one re:Karin Grech? Would be good to have someone in the know pull all the strings together like this.
(Incidentally, you should pull a ‘Clarkson’ and publish some of this stuff in a book)
[Daphne – Unfortunately, there is nothing known about Karin Grech’s murder. No names, no arraignments, nothing to go on at all. And I feel really strongly about her murder because she was only a couple of years older than I am so I remember being really disturbed by the news when I was 13.]