Don't make yourself even more ridiculous, Julia Farrugia

Published: February 16, 2011 at 4:28pm

Julia Farrugia interviewed Karmenu Vella without telling her readers that her father was his driver.

In typical Labour fashion, Julia Farrugia has requested the police to take action against me for writing….what? That she’s il-Botom’s daughter?

A couple of people phoned to say “So, isn’t she Il-Botom’s daughter after all?”

“Yes,” I said. “She certainly is.”

“So why has she asked the police to take action against you then?”

Because she can. Because in this country where there are no obstacles to or penalties for frivolous law suits and wasting police time, it costs next to nothing to file a civil suit for libel and even less to waste police time. So they majtezwel chens it. People like Julia Farrugia and her former Super One stablemate Charlon Gouder use the police to harass me. In oh-so-typical Labour fashion, they use what is essentially an anti-democratic tool (criminal libel is being written off the law books in most democratic states, or has been allowed to fall into dead-letter status) to fight for their ‘rights’ as journalists.

So now we shall be treated to the weird spectacle of the daughter of Il-Botom, a man who was investigated by the police on suspicion of having fired a gun at a Nationalist Party Club in 1986, asking John Rizzo, the police officer who escorted the framed Pietru Pawl Busuttil into court that same month on charges involving the same gun, to prosecute me for telling people just whose daughter Julia Farrugia is.

If she thinks it’s a crime to have somebody point out who her father is – essential context when analysing what she writes and who she interviews and why – then she had better produce some DNA certification sharpish.

Her father is her problem, not mine. Apparently, he was also John Rizzo’s problem for a time, but it looks like John Rizzo had no such problem sitting down and being interviewed by Julia about – oh, how amusing – the murder of Raymond Caruana in a real-life Alice in Wonderland scenario.

Julia Farrugia says she has felt libelled by my comments since February last year. Bollocks (I’m sorry about that, but nothing else will suffice). At a party last spring she came up to me wreathed in smiles and compliments, chatting about everything under the sun and saying how much she admires me and the top I was wearing, and where did I buy it.

I remember thinking, what exactly does this snake want? Not to tell me that she had been feeling libelled by me for the last few months, that’s for sure.

The suck-up exercise was in aid of something else, but Julia Farrugia won’t say what it is because it will blow right out of the water Saviour Balzan’s claim that his newspapers didn’t collude with Consuelo Herrera last January.

It is the blatant and shameless hypocrisy and double standards that make Julia Farrugia almost as ridiculous and embarrassing as her paymasters Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio.

While in her video transmission from the steps of the law courts (the Malta Today house camera is tragically misused for such idiotic purposes and Balzan’s ‘videoblog’) she said that no journalist should feel threatened or blackmailed, the Malta Today comments-board runs a stream of foul, slanderous and subliterate insults aganst me, together with direct threats and intimidation about what will happen to me when Labour wins the general election and I “no longer have police protection”, from individuals who are quite obviously unbalanced and fixated stalkers.

Now those are definitely grounds for police investigation, so I think I’ll do what I know Julia Farrugia does, and put a call straight through to John Rizzo, though he never had to investigate my father for driving up to a PN club in Karmenu Vella’s car and shooting at it.

And then Saviour Balzan might entertain us with another little drama-blog about freedom of expression and his right to allow people to threaten me with violence through the medium of his website.

Because just in case you hadn’t noticed, the entire population of a vile, filthy, unlawful and slanderous ANONYMOUS website has migrated en masse to the comments-board of Malta Today. Just check beneath Saviour Balzan’s video blog and you’ll see what I mean.

Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio, rather than being shocked and dismayed that this is the sort of ‘customer’ they now have, are delighted to let them go through unmoderated or deleted. They include gross insults of the sort that only a certain type of Labour supporter can devise, and direct threats to my safety.

I expect little better of Saviour Balzan, because he was raised by a very nasty woman (she taught me at school) in a family of Mintoffjani, but Roger de Giorgio had the advantages of a good upbringing by correct people and his behaviour is shamefully inexplicable, even if you factor in his bitterness that has fermented over several years.

How cheap of a man from such a good family to be prepared to associate with the sort of venomous guttersnipes who are migrating to his website, purely because it feeds into some obscure need for revenge. What is he going to do next – socialise with them? Oh, but I forgot: he already socialises quite a lot with that man Jo Said. It was his wife who introduced him to me around four and a half years ago, and after that he didn’t stop ringing me at all hours, until one time at midnight I passed the phone to my husband and told him, “Please tell this awful man to bugger off.” And that’s what he did. And now Said is busy posting ugly comments about us all over Saviour’s and Roger’s site and others.

In Malta Today’s eyes, I am not a journalist or even a human being and I don’t have rights – unlike Julia Farrugia who can ask the police to take criminal action against those who say that she is Il-Botom’s daughter, when she really and truly is Il-Botom’s daughter.

But I’m afraid that Malta Today is about to discover otherwise..

What does Julia Farrugia imagine – that in discussions of what her father has done, the police and the law courts should stop people mentioning the FACT that this man’s daughter edits Illium?

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Karmenu ‘Il-Botom’ Farrugia, Karmenu Vella’s ex driver, didn’t ask the police to take action against me for reminding everyone that he was implicated under oath in the Tarxien shooting – but his daughter did, because she doesn’t like being associated in the public mind with her father’s behaviour.

Well, sorry to have to tell you this, Julia, but if you had a problem with your father’s behaviour, you shouldn’t have gone into the worst possible career for somebody who doesn’t want people to know that she is the child of an alleged political thug: political journalism. The next worst career would have been politics itself. Would you really have expected to stand for election without anyone mentioning whose daughter you are? I don’t recall Alessandra Mussolini suing anyone who said that she was Benito’s granddaughter.

Some more advice, Julia: you should have declared your own parentage before others declared it for you. Or you should have avoided doing brazen and shameless things like suck-up interviews with Karmenu Vella (without saying that your father drove him around in Labour government days) or John Rizzo (without saying that your father was implicated in a crime using the same gun that was used to frame PP Busuttil when Rizzo was Lorry Pullicino’s secretary and the man who marched Busuttil into court).

Do you know what you all are? You’re disgusting. And shameless. I hate to say this, but your behaviour is entirely consistent with your political beliefs, the lot of you, with your sleazy wheels within wheels.

Shame that we talk about voting out governments when the real sleaze lies elsewhere and no number of votes will get rid of it.

And another thing, Julia: you and your father (and your bosses) might wish to read up on something called the Streisand Effect. Or you can just save yourselves a lot of trouble and ring the woman who would be Mrs Musumeci Mk II if her buddy Jeffrey gets his way.




67 Comments Comment

  1. Interested Bystander says:

    The small world just got smaller.

  2. Interested Bystander says:

    BTW, what does il-botom translate as please?

    [Daphne – It doesn’t.]

    • Interested Bystander says:

      He is ‘the arse’ then.

    • George Mifsud says:

      Finally I’ve got one on you Ms.CG. Just taking the mickey. Actually botom is the maltese word for litter as in ‘a litter of bunnies’ – botom zrameg. It is honestly.

    • A.Attard says:

      Botom could be translated to litter as in a litter of rabbits.
      Botom fkiek botom majjali etc.
      However I have no idea what is the etmology of this particular person’s nickname.

    • John Schembri says:

      “Botom” jew “boton” nghiduha ghal “botom fniek” PE nghidu “il-fenka kellha botom ta’ hamsa”
      Plural , jekk m’inhix sejjer zball: “Btam”. “Din il-fenka kellha erba’ t’ibtam ,fl-ahhar botom kellha sitta”.
      Hemm min juza’ din il-kelma ghal- ‘lot’ bl-Ingliz.
      Nom kollettiv(?)

    • Bus Driver says:

      ‘Botom’ is the Maltese term for a cluster of sibling new born rabbits.

      The same word, spelt with a double ‘t’, can stand for something else altogether.

    • ThePhoenix says:

      botom as in botom fniek – a litter of rabbits. Karmenu l-Botom is short, stocky, swarthy and generally unsavoury. Hence his nickname.

    • The Grinch says:

      Botom fniek. a group of rabbits when they are born that’s what we call them: BOTOM.

      [Daphne – Not boton?]

  3. Joe Micallef says:

    Is she by any chance disowning her father because she is ashamed of his past, but she cannot tell it to him directly? That would be sad!

    • La Redoute says:

      Wouldn’t that, by implication, mean that there’s more than a grain of truth to the stories that the Labour Party would prefer to bury once and for all?

  4. ALEX VASSALLO says:

    Excellent article as always, Daphne. Keep it up!

  5. Bob says:

    The only way she can win this is by having previously refused to recognize her father, as her father, and then you would be lying if you called him her father.

    Is it against the law to say that someone is the daughter of someone?

    Botom could come from ‘bottom’ – meaning you cannot go any lower.

  6. You Know WHo says:

    Botom, as far as I recall is also the word used for “litter” as in Botom fniek, a litter of baby rabits.

    Of course I could be wrong, but that’s the only “botom” I know.

  7. TROY says:

    What’s the problem Julia? Is il-Botom your father or not?

    • Grezz says:

      If Julia Farrugia does not wish to be associated with her father, then she should publicly dissociate herself from him, rather than sue Daphne for libel.

      What is it with Malta and the Maltese, with everyone too scared to speak the truth and to stand up for what is right? I come across it all the time, in various stiuations, and find it so bl**dy frustrating.

  8. Fairy Liquid says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgSrGv4uROI&feature=player_embedded

    I’ve just watched the video. Madonna, how shocking. She abuses of her position in the Institute of Journalists to summon news reporters to a press conference on the steps of the law courts, when libel suits are filed almost every day and news rooms, if they bother at all, rely on picking up a copy of the court papers.

    Then she and her lawyer stand there and explain that they are about to file a libel suit WITHOUT MENTIONING YOUR NAME or saying that it is you they are suing.

    And most shocking of all, the reporters just stand there, like a bunch of pastizzi, cameras and mikes in hand, WITHOUT ASKING A SINGLE QUESTION.

    “Julia, is it true your father was implicated in that case?”

    “Julia, are you saying that you are not Karmenu Farrugia’s daughter? That your father was not Karmenu Vella’s driver? That he was not investigated by the police or named under oath by Ganni Psaila?”

    I can already feel the cold dread of looming Mintoffianism, when even reporters from rival newsrooms are scared of and intimidated by the editor of Illum because her father was Karmenu Vella’s driver and confidante.

    X’biza ta’ pajjiz. It’s getting worse and worse, and so insidiously that many people don’t even notice and if they do, they just give up and stop the fight.

    • La Redoute says:

      I noticed that too.

      Malta Today wouldn’t ask awkward questions, but even timesofmalta.com simply published a video of her reading out a prepared statement.

      Surely the first thing reporters should have done was to ask whether she disputes any of the stated facts?

  9. Hot Mama says:

    With her libel she is publicly disowning her own father. But then one cannot expect poor Julia to get her tiny mind around this thought.

  10. shumi says:

    JEKK ghANDEK IL GAZZgib li qed nikteb dahpne.
    JA BHAHEN x ghandna x taqsam Julia fi zminijiet ta 80 s meta kellha biss 9 years . anke jekk missiera imma mhux hi x injoranza ta nazzjon ahna naghtu l b istalletti li nies li ma ghandhom x jaqsmu xejn bhahen skuzawni l espressjoni imma iktar minn ma jixraqilkomx

    [Daphne – GAZZ. Jaqq, x.nies. Nice knights, that Julia’s got. Qabda criecer u hamalli. Jekk Julia tisthi minhabba missiera, dik problema taghha, mhux tieghi. Jien xi darba ghidt li kella x’taqsam ma’ dawk iz-zminijiet? Ghidt biss li missiera kien involut u investigat.]

    • shumi says:

      Allura b daqshekk x’zeffintha taghmel fin-nofs. Nahseb li l ahjar meta trid tattakka, attaka l argument mela taqbad ma anqbud li lum il-gurnata nies lanqas biss jaghtu kas. Ara kieku kien missiera l-gurnalist nighdlek ghandek naqa ragun imma li pruvajt thammeg gurnalista li ghandna kredenzjal tajjeb hafna ax miex mahmmuga bhal ma ghandhom 2 partiti ghalija bla sens . DIN i opinjoni tieghi minajr ma rrid nargumenta ma hadd

      [Daphne – Ha niktiblek bl-Ingliz halli jifhem kullhadd. 1. Fact: Julia Farrugia is Il-Botom’s daughter. She does not deny this. 2. Fact: Ganni Psaila named her father under oath as the man who shot at the PN club in Tarxien. He denied this in a ‘my word against his’ scenario, though it was more than amply clear that the two men knew each other pretty well. 3. There is an English word called ‘compromised’ which describes Julia Farrugia’s difficult position in journalism. Through no fault of her own, she is compromised by her father’s alleged behaviour and certainly by the fact that her father was Karmenu Vella’s driver, when drivers were not just ‘drivers’. It means she cannot, for example, interview Karmenu Vella about Labour’s programme for 2013 and be credible. It’s not her fault, but that’s life, tough. What is her fault is that she tried to hide her background, and that she actually went out and interviewed Karmenu Vella and also the police commissioner about Raymond Caruana. This is disrespect towards readers. 4. Julia Farrugia comes from the Super One stable. If she were not that sort of person, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I cannot think of a single decent person who came out of Super One. And why was she at Super One? Precisely because of that background you say is irrelevant. Julia Farrugia’s politics are the result of her background. She can’t claim that her background is irrelevant, though she might be convincing when she says it if we knew she was a keen supporter of the Nationalist Party, which she clearly is not.]

      • La Redoute says:

        One more than one occasion, Julia Farrugia has mentioned Raymond Caruana’s case in print, but only to point out to readers that his family didn’t receive compensation for the murder.

        A newspaper worthy of the name would fill in the background to the case. As editor, it was her obligation to do so. She didn’t do that. You need to ask yourself why.

        Whether it’s a blind spot or a deliberate cover-up is almost irrelevant – the fact remains that she is in no position to report on the matter, nor is she in a position to allow anyone else to do so freely.

        She may not be to blame for what happened but as a newspaper editor, she has a conflict of interest. And, for that, she has only herself to blame for accepting the role in the first place.

      • Grace says:

        Super One stable? By the same argument the head of PBS news comes from NET stable. Now that is something that should worry us, this person who is clearly baised against the opposition decides what to air and what not to air on the National TV.

        [Daphne – Oh, I don’t worry about people who come from the Nationallist stable because with very few exceptions they tend to be very professional. Unllike you, I don’t equate the parties. They obviously have very different standards of professionalism and expertise. Anything that comes from Labour worries me not because it comes from Labour per se, but because everything it does is so shoddy and amateurish. I mean, how exactly do you equate Jason Micallef, now head of Super One, with Anton Attard. former head of NET? There is just no comparison. Attard is a professional media man. Jason is just……Freddie Micallef’s nephew.]

        What stable do you come from?

        [Daphne – The privately-owned English-language media (not Malta Today, but the other two).]

        According to you Julia’s father was implicated by Gianni Psaila – Il-Pupa who at the time wanted to please the PN and it was in his interest to implicate any PL supporter.

        [Daphne – No, Grace, not ‘according to me’. It’s in the court records. He said it under oath. Farrugia then denied it, but it was his word against Psaila’s and they knew each other well.]

        Let’s not forget who this person was, though you might say that since he was a PN supporter he was saying the truth, like in your last sentence you said you would have believed Julia Farrugia had she been a “keen supporter of the Nationalist Party”. I had a higher opinion of you but this last sentence shows you up as a fanatic PN supporter, pity I used to think that only illiterate persons were fanatic party followers.

        [Daphne – That is not what I said at all, and I really cannot understand why Labour voters cannot seem to read and interpret slightly more complex sentences than those found in Janet and John books. I said that it is obvious that Julia Farrugia’s politics are the result of her parentage and background. She would be credible when claiming they are not if she voted Nationalist – BECAUSE THEN IT WOULD BE OBVIOUS THAT SHE WASN’T INFLUENCED BY HER FATHER. As regards your last sentence, illiterate persons are not ‘fanatic party followers’. In my experience as the recipient of their ‘comments’, I can say that they are more likely to be fanatical Labour Party followers.]

    • Grezz says:

      In-nies (bhali) li jitkellmu bl-Ingliz, meta jitkellmu bil-Malti, jghidu “meta kellha biss disgha snin”.

  11. Ray says:

    Reading the horrendous comments in Malta Today, you should be the one suing them and not the other way round.

    [Daphne – I shall. You can always trust a Labour fool to walk right into a trap. As long as they were on the anonymous hate-site, I couldn’t sue anyone. But now that they’ve all migrated en masse to Saviour, I can sue Saviour and Matthew Vella. Effing idiots.]

    • Hot Mama says:

      Poor James Debono, why doesn’t he migrate to another news source?

    • Antoine Vella says:

      The hate site is not 100% anonymous: its registrant is someone who sells pastizzi (seriously) in Australia. He runs a shop in a Sydney suburb.

      • Grezz says:

        And there I was, thinking it was some slob from Gzira now selling sweets in New York …

      • ciccio2011 says:

        Antoine, or is the hate site now called Malta Today? With comments like those appearing under the famous, or shall I say infamous, Saviour Balzan video blogs, MaltaToday is now no more than a cheap hate site. Who would want to advertise on it?

  12. Gordon says:

    only daphne you from a bystander view I think that you made reference to Julia Farrugia’s father with the intent of connecting her name to crime and thus making it appear that Julia’s views shouldn’t be trusted because her father may have done wrongdoing a few decades ago. That isn’t proper and Julia is right to protest.

    [Daphne – Permit me to correct you. The way to get people to trust your views is 1. to declare any vested interest or conflict you might have, and 2. to avoid writing about matters where you have a perceived conflict. People cannot ‘trust’ an interview of Karmenu Vella by Julia Farrugia, even if she lets it be known that he employed her father for years, let alone when she chooses to conceal that fact. I did not attempt to connect Julia Farrugia to crime. I pointed out the crucial fact, which Malta Today kept concealed, that she is the daughter of a Labour (alleged) thug who was named in court as the person who shot at the Tarxien PN club. Therefore anything she writes has to be framed in that context – including, and especially, reports of those events.]

  13. j busuttil says:

    Julia, why worry. Now you are getting the same flogging you tried on others on Illum.

  14. K Farrugia says:

    Hey, Julia Farrugia “means business” eh!

  15. David says:

    Most countries in the world including European countries (as in Italy,Germany, Switzerland, Norway and others) have criminal defamation laws http://www.article19.org/advocacy/defamationmap/overview.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Europe

    [Daphne – But they don’t use them: that’s what dead letter means. Has Silvio Berlusconi sent the police after any of the journalists who write about him? For these things, look to Britain, which repealed its criminal defamation law because it was subject to so much abuse, though not to the extent that it is in Malta, where the police are being used in substitute for a civil case or even alongside. Criminal libel is for very serious cases, not Julia Farrugia getting upset because I told people who daddy is. The trouble with those people is that they still think that the police are their servants.]

    • shumi says:

      Jien nahseb kulhadd jilhaq sallibu ghax kull min jgholi idejh l fuq kulhadd ghandnu x ijxhom. Jien nikteb bil maltli ax jien malti u minhiex LAQI tal-barrani. Vera li niehu naqa shortcuts !

      [Daphne – Ma tiktibx bil-Malti. Tikteb bil-pidgin. Dak tghidlu Malti? Jekk dik inhi l-uniku lingwa li taf, mela l-vera miskin, jahasra. Jien Maltija ukoll, u nista nimsah l-art bik fil-Malti u anke l-Inglizi fl-Ingliz. Li tkun Malti ma jfissirx li bil-fors trid tkun injorant u kwazi illiterat.]

      • John (not Dalli) says:

        ” jien malti u minhiex LAQI tal-barrani.”

        Ghidilha Schumacher!

      • shumi says:

        nahseb int pulita ux int hamlla ohra ax hlief thameeg fuq nies ma tammilxu tghajjarhom ja oqbra nbajda. Int m intiex minn dawk li tghid fuq in-nies u tghajjarhom imbaghad tmur timbla l ostja ux ? bhal dak li gab l mibed fil pajjiz ta fenech adami.

        [Daphne – Turi kemm taqra l-artikli tieghi, shumi (jekk taf taqra bl-Ingliz ghax nahseb li ghandek problema hemmhekk). Lanqas biss taf li jien ma niblaghx ostji, ahseb u ara kemm taf xejn fuq dak li nikteb. Gej bil-hdura.]

      • shumi says:

        Kompli ghajjar lin-nies ghax hekk taf taghmel ,ja oqbra nbajda. Int m’ intiex minn dawk li tqatta l hin tghajjar u tinsinwa nies,imbaghad tmur tibla l ostja .Li trida tal- pulita miskina.Nahseb li bhal ex leader tieghek dak li gab il-mibeda u l -hdura li hawn ghal xulxin fil-pajjiz, nerga nghidlek oqbra nbajda. Sbieh minn barra imma gewwa tal biza.
        E bil haqq illiterat minniehx ghax naf nikteb imma forsi nferfex ijja.

        [Daphne – Mela issa sirt sabiha minn barra? Ahjar ma tghidx hekk, ghax shabek tal-Witch Club jirrabjaw bik.]

      • shumi says:

        Mela hekk tqattaha hajtek tgheda bin-nies hin ghad dar ma jkollokx jew int minn dawk il-kmdi li tqabbad is- seftura, ghax alla jbierek qiesek 24 hrs mqabbda mal-pc.

        [Daphne – Typical Labour: post il-mara huwa d-dar, tnaddaf. Kif ma tisthux?]

      • Joe Micallef says:

        Schumi x’inhi l-ispirazzjoni tan-“nick” li tuza? Nispera li mhux il-velocita daqs kemm iddum biex tifhem.

      • ray spiteri says:

        shumi kun af li daphne ghandha double barrel name u tikonsidra ruha mal klassi ta l aristokrita. prosit siehbi kompli ikommunika bil malti. daphne mhux laqi tal barani ima a very faithful lady of GONZIPN. jien irrejalizajt isa u daqsekk vot lil pn.ex pn

      • Mark says:

        Ghaziz shumi l-illitterat,

        Jekk tisma’ d-diskorsi tal-meetings ta’ Fenech Adami, Mintoff u KMB, tinduna malajr min veru zera l-hdura.

        Wiehed wara li kissrulu d-dar u sawtulu l-familtu tkellem fuq rikonciljazzjoni nazzjonali. It-tnejn l-ohra minghajr ma qatt kienu provokati incitaw lil taghhom ghal vjolenza ghal izjed minn darba.

  16. Riya says:

    ‘The trouble with those people is that they still think that the police are their servants’.

    Also the Poluce used to set up frame-ups so that their friends are never caught.

  17. Riya says:

    Botom or Boton. The meaning does not make any difference. Karmenu Farrugia, Julia’s father, is known as il-Botom jew ix-xufier tal- famus Perit Karmenu Vella.

    The fact is that il-Pupa, and not Daphne, said that Karmenu Farrugia, il-Botom, in 1986 was present in the Labour car-cade in Tarxien driving il-Perit Karmenu Vella’s car, and that he alighted from the minister’s car, asked for the exact location of the PN club and shot at it with a sub-machine gun. Karmenu Farrugia denied this but it was his word against Pupa’s.

    It is also a fact that he was a very close friend of Kola (Nicholas) Ellul known as ic-Caqwes, originally from Qrendi but living in Valletta, who was arraigned for Raymond Caruana’s murder, when PN were in government, because during the Labour Golden Years he was not even investgated.

    Is Julia denying this? Libel against Daphne on what grounds?

    [Daphne – Being associated with her father, apparently, as though that’s my fault rather than her mother’s choice.]

    • Grace says:

      And why might I ask should we believe il Pupa and not Julia’s father.

      [Daphne – You can equally ask the reverse, Grace. It’s not as though either of them had a reputation as a fine, upstanding pillar of society.]

      Could it be that il-Pupa was trying to frame him? Let’s face it il-Pupa was no angel. Ic-Caqwes was never found guilty of Raymond Caruana’s murder, so we cannot be sure if he did it or not can we?

      [Daphne – Er, Grace, I think that’s exactly the point we’ve been making here: that somebody had a vested interest in keeping Nicholas Ellul’s trial pending for 10 years until he died or was killed. That way you can say the case is closed because the chief suspect died, and the real culprit can get away with it. ]

      Very conviniently he died before he was proven guilty or innocent, I wonder in whose interest it was to let his case drag for so long.

      [Daphne – Probably in the interest of the same person who placed a bomb in Psaila’s car, failed to get rid of him and then was lucky enough to have him ‘fall down a shaft’.]

      • Grace says:

        Nobody placed a bomb in Psaila’s car, he placed it himself, and was transporting it to plant it behind someone else’s door. It seems that when someone is pro PN he can do nothing wrong.

        [Daphne – Here’s another one who believes in the Tooth Fairy. Give me strength.]

        Just like Zeppi l-Hafi. Grow up Daphne you should know better, let’s face it you are no longer that gullible 18 year old you were in the 80s.

        [Daphne – This may come as a surprise to you, Grace, but I think I was born not gullible. That’s why I never voted Labour and probably never will. Oh, and I worked that one out for myself.]

        Ic-Caqwes was accused of Raymond Caruana’s death under a PN government, and it was up to them to see that justice was being done.

        [Daphne – Really? You mean it wasn’t up to the police? My, my – you know a lot about the separation of powers. I think it was bad enough already that Eddie Fenech Adami had to practically direct the police to arraign the owner of the weapon. What were they planning to do, exactly – sit on it?]

      • Gahan says:

        X’hinu jzomm lit-tabib Gorg Vella jizvela x’qallu Ganni l-Pupa fuq il-qtil ta’ Raymond Caruana issa la miet?

        Kif tista qatt tifhem kif bniedem zopp b’bomba sploduta taht siequ, se jmur jisraq u waqt din is-’serqa’ JITLA tarag JIGRI u jaqbez ghal-isfel go bitha?

        Bomba ma riglek bill-kemm thallik timxi wara li ‘tfieq’, ahseb u ara titla tigri tarag bil-pulizja b’sahhtu jigri warajk.

        Il-‘htija’ li ghandha Julia hi li jekk taf b’xi haga li tista titfa l-inqas dell ikrah fuq missiera hi ZGUR li mhux se tirrappurtaha. Jien ma’ ntijhiex tort kieku taghmel hekk.

        Kieku jien kont flok Julia kont nevita li nahdem rapporti li jqeghduni f’pozizzjoni prekarja.

  18. John Schembri says:

    I think it is important for readers to know who is who when they are presented with things to read.

    Karl Schembri kept away from reporting his mother’s murder in hospital, and his father’s trial by jury. Peppi Azzopardi made a heartfelt appeal for a ‘not guilty’ verdict, because he knew the story inside out.

    Another instance where one needs to know about the author of a writing is when Mario Farrugia Borg wrote a letter about how well he was treated in Libya .
    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091229/letters/the-libya-i-have-grown-to-love
    I was impressed…….Until I read this comment:

    KZerafa(on 29/12/09)
    “Mr. Farrugia Borg forgot to tell the esteemed readers that he’s a Maltese Muslim. Therefore, he tends to be biased.”
    http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2001/0923/local3.html

  19. Antoine Vella says:

    According to the Times, Julia Farrugia “said that she could not allow her name to be somehow linked to political events with which she had nothing to do.”

    She is not being linked to “political events”. She is being linked to her father.

    And she doesn’t like it.

    (sent this comment to The Times but I doubt they’ll upload it)

  20. Anthony Galea says:

    Is Roger Degiorgio who Daphne is mentioning and critising all the time in this article the famous Nationalist who was the champion of the boycott against Dardir Malta in the Mintoff era? Is Roger degorgio now also in the bad books of the Nationalist Party and Daphne who is the PN’s champion?

    [Daphne – Actually it’s the other way round.]

  21. John Vella says:

    ara daphne tant int mohok miftuh li l-kummenti li jaqblu mieghek biss ggib fuq il-blog tal hdura tieghek.

    [Daphne – Lanqas xejn. Ara, tieghek gibtilek. Kuntent issa? Kellek xi argument hemmhekk, li tant huwa importanti li n-nies jaqrawh?]

  22. Riya says:

    Antoine Vella

    ‘She is not being linked to “political events”. She is being linked to her father’.

    Since when is shooting at PN clubs a political event rather than a criminal act?

  23. Riya says:

    Grace

    You made a good point. But you failed to mention, or maybe you are not aware, that ic-Caqwes was the owner of the sub-machine gun when Raymond Caruana was murdered.

    This fact only transpired when PN were in government, as this crucial fact was not of interest during the investigations carried out by the police of the Golden Years. Their only aim was to frame someone, who happened to be Pietru Pawl Busuttil.

  24. Riya says:

    Grace,

    A good qusetion would be, how did that gun end up in police hands before the frame-up? Do you also believe that Nardu Debono was not beaten to death by the police?

    • Grace says:

      Very conviently you seem to forget why Nardu Debono was in police custody. In case you did let me remind you that he was caught planting a bomb behind the police commissioner’s door.

      [Daphne – He wasn’t caught planting it, Grace. It’s not like those who plant bombs wait until there are witnesses around to do it. Nardu Debono was probably in police custody for the very same reasons that so many others ended up there, including me. People like Anglu Farrugia wanted somebody to blame because they didn’t have the forensic skills (I mean, did you see his performance with the ‘PN agents bought votes from Labour junkies’ business?) to catch the real criminals. Or perhaps they knew who the real criminals were and wanted to blame somebody else.]

      The police were interegoting him to find out who had commissioned him to do so. The only person who gained from his death was the person who commissioned him to plant that bomb. The police who were present during this beating were later given a presendential pardon to frame the commissioner and promoted. These presidential pardons were very common under EFA.

      [Daphne – Tooth Fairy time again, Grace. You are a lost cause. You sound to me like a friend I once had who would fight with anybody who even suggested that perhaps, just perhaps, she should enquire more closely into her husband’s behaviour. There was always some excuse or justification for what he did; he could do no wrong and even when she finally caught him in flagrante, the other woman got the blame for leading him on, miskin.]

  25. Edward Caruana Galizia says:

    Did you catch Julia Farrugia’s interview outside the law courts? Laughable. Which blog entry is she refering to exactly? The one in which, in passing comment, you pointed out whose daughter she is?

    If so, then God help us all.

    Are they just doing this so that they can make the present time look like some awful oppressive moment in Malta’s history, so that if and when Labour are voted into government, they can reminisce about how they battled Gonzipn (as they so often like to call it themselves?)

    It’s as if they are jealous of the Nationalists who actually have a reason to dislike the Labour Party so they are trying to create a similar scenario for themselves.

    Just one problem with that. The Nationalists actually have a point.

  26. AV180R says:

    La verita fa male.

    This was extremely apparent in Julia’s body language and emotional state. She couldn’t even keep herself cool, calm and composed (she sounded literally out of breath at one point) in her two-minute interview. Basta giet tizzattat quddiem il-camera.

    What a bunch of sore losers.

    U morru tnejku ja qabda infiskati.

  27. Riya says:

    Grace

    How did the murder weapon that killed Raymond Caruana end up in police possession? I mention another person who was beaten at Police Head Quarters and after some time he was found dead in the Ta’ Qali area: Wifred Cardona. I believe that what happened to Pietru Pawl Busuttil happened also to Nardu Debono.

    He was arrested because the police alleged that explosives were found in a rubble wall surrounding his fields. PS 710 had testified in Quort that he saw Nardu Debono walking at Qormi when it trasnpired that it was the same PS 710 who carried his dead body from the cell and placed him in the luggage booth of a blue Simca and drove out of police headquarters with Nardu Debono’s corpse.

    This was confirmed by a man who at the time was under arrest in a cell next to Nardu Debono’s.

    • Mario says:

      Taf li PS710 ghadu fil-korp tal-Pulizija? Jaghti s-servizz tieghu fil-Belt kapitali ta Malta! Allura jew dak li qed tghid fuqu kollu gideb jew ghadna korp li ghandu membri kriminali go fih.

      [Daphne – X’jismu dak li taf inti? Is-710 tan-1984 kien jismu Mangion.]

  28. o zmien helu kif hallejtni says:

    Very interesting all these facts about K Vella’s driver. In the days following Raymond Caruana’s death, the only MLP people to visit his parents were Karmenu Vella and I think also Marie Louise Coleiro.

  29. Riya says:

    ‘Very interesting all these facts about K Vella’s driver. In the days following Raymond Caruana’s death, the only MLP people to visit his parents were Karmenu Vella and I think also Marie Louise Coleiro’.

    Vera ma jisthux dawn in-nies.

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