Malta should stop colluding with Gaddafi
The goalposts have shifted permanently, but our government is too slow to notice. There they go, discussing divorce again just because Jeff and Ev said so.
Divorce? They need to get a grip on this situation instead. The easy-going relationship between Gaddafi’s regime and Malta, with the rubber-stamping of visas and no background checks – at least, we don’t check backgrounds, but Gaddafi’s regime checked ours – has got to stop.
From here on in, we are not dealing with ‘friends’ but with real or potential criminals.
Those Libyan men were right to track down Shadi Sabri to his hotel, alert the police and demand that he be arrested and questioned.
Yes, they were right. But they were wrong in assuming that the police did not know about him, or who he was, or that they would want to have anything at all to do with it.
Strictly speaking, the police could not really have anything to do with it because any crimes this man committed were not committed on Maltese territory. But they would have been within their rights – and certainly exercising their duty – to haul him in, give him the verbal once-over, and find out how and why he was given a visa to get into the country.
People like that, from now on, have got to be blacklisted. We don’t need that kind of garbage popping in and out of Malta and doing God knows what.
I can fully understand the rage of the men who wanted him arrested. They must feel so helpless watching an undesirable like Shadi Sabri, chairman and president of the Gaddafi family’s airline, Afriqiyah Airways, flit about in Malta while on the way to Dubai – or so he claimed – as their families are under siege in Tripoli.
Beneath the report on timesofmalta.com, a Maltese man who spends most of the year based in Tripoli (I know him and can vouch for him) has posted this comment:
I am surprised and dismayed how Shadi Sabri was even allowed entry into Malta at this delicate moment in Libya. He is an “undesirable” par excellance, and local security should have known who this person is and investigate who hosted him and who applied for his visa. The local security must realise that we have Libyan regime lackeys stationed in Malta to assist Gaddafi. Wake up!
I think that Maltese security forces are perfectly well aware that Gaddafi’s lackeys are stationed in Malta to assist him. My worry is that they assist them too.
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This press release was very unfortunately timed.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/business/view/20110217/news/over-70-of-palm-city-residences-leased
So Daphne, are you going to tell us who hosted and applied for Shadi Sabri visa?
[Daphne – I haven’t a clue about the visa. But we know where he was staying because that’s where the protestors found him.]
Anyone can book a hotel room, by phone or online.
Anyone can be readily identified on arrival in Malta if not when making their reservation by phone or online.
Born to lead?
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/05/19/223856/sabri-shadi-born-to-lead.html
Check it out, as I think it was his brother not him.
Why didn’t he or his minders say so?
I was shocked to read about Sabri being in Malta!
What was he doing here, who did he meet and where was he going?
Last I heard he was organising flights in Africa to fly mercenaries to Libya.
Daphne, you are right, certain regime lackeys are still being given a free hand to operate in Malta.
The authorities need to stand up and show that we are behind the Libyan people and not behind the regime.
It is a very sad fact that Libya has for a long time been able to smuggle its security people into Malta behind the back of our officialdom, even through the VIP lounge, using Maltese lackeys employed at the airport and about whose presence on the island was not known to our Foreign Office that learnt about it accidentally only when the use of the VIP was cheekily requested on his way out of the island. On one occasion a magisterial enquiry was actually started but it was never completed.
How about the MFSA, the local banking regulator, requesting banks to report whether they hold financial assets in the name of the Ghaddafi clan and their collaborators.
I admire you for your stand, Simon.
And may I tell the readers here that he’s got business interests in Libya.
[Daphne – Yes. Simon is the man I quoted in my post above.]
Anyone who knows this gentleman can vouch that he’s not the typical Maltese ‘businessman’, you do what he requires and he pays pronto pronto.
Chapeau!
http://www3.lastampa.it/economia/sezioni/articolo/lstp/390562/
Corinthia gets a mention in this ” La Stampa” article as well as LAFICO (Libyan Arab Financial Investment Company) who were very active in Malta and had an office just opposite the Floriana Health Centre.
Shadi Sabri was hosted at a Corinthia hotel in St Julian’s.