@Baxxter

You’re right. Here’s a photo of Lino Spiteri opposing Mintoff and Gaddafi in Labour’s Golden Years (first picture):

http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2011/02/23/why-labour-is-mum-about-libya-1/

Ah, yes, he was pro-EU and wanted VAT – for a moment I’d forgotten that he was Sant’s right hand man.

Wrong, Baxxter. He was in bed with the old fart. Saw the light years later. Changed clothes (when his hair went white), and became an ‘intellectual’.

Well then Newsweek was wrong. Not for the first time either.

Malta saw to it that the law was not broken. I would call that policing. The tanker had the intention of breaking the law, not Malta.

[Daphne – I find myself having to count to 10 rather a lot with comments like these. Malta would have broken the law itself had it allowed that ship through. I don’t think you need simple legal principles explained to you; you’re probably just pretending. But just in case: 1. the tanker was in breach of the law; 2. once Malta had information about this tanker, it found itself with a position before the law too; it could have let the tanker through (against the law) or not let the tanker through (in line with the law). That is not policing. If a sales assistant in a jewellery shop refuses to unlock the door to let a robber in, she is not policing. If she lets him in fully aware of his intentions, she breaks the law.]

I confirm it was German Leopard tanks headed for Libya. I believe I read it on Newsweek at that time.

British newspapers more recently are reporting Israeli concerns on certain cargo being traded to Iran in our Freeport.

I do not think the ‘cargo’ carried a sticker with ‘Atomkraft? Nein danke!’

Oh no he isn’t. He’s a white-haired wise man who opposed Mintoff, was pro-EU and wanted VAT all along.

Where did you get this story about German Leopard tanks being sold to Libya? Do you mean the Belgian export of German-made Leopard tanks to Lebanon?

It’s immaterial for now to know who provided the fuel for the Gaddafi regime, but Malta did its part by not allowing that illegal fuel to reach Gaddafi.

[Daphne – John, please. Malta did not ‘do its part’. Malta obeyed the law. Do you go home every evening to tell your wife ‘I didn’t murder anyone today, even though I really felt like it and at one point was under considerable pressure to do so’? What are you suggesting here – that, faced with a choice between breaking the law and not breaking it, Malta deserves applause for doing its part in not busting sanctions? I just don’t believe this way of thinking.]

Should Malta or any country start policing other countries to see wether UN sanctions are being observed?

[Daphne – There is a difference between policing and turning a blind eye when information sits down on your desk and shouts at you ‘Look! Information on sanctions busting!’ Once that sort of information comes to your attention, you are obliged to act on it.]