'Prime Minister Mintoff told me I might be shot if I opposed Lorry Sant's project in a green area' – former Labour minister Daniel Micallef
Lorry Sant (left) with Dom Mintoff
From an interview with Daniel Micallef, Labour government minister in the 1970s and Speaker of the House in the 1980s – The Sunday Times, 3 October 2010:
Dr Micallef says he was fully conscious of the reputation of the more notorious members of the Socialist regime.
Asked whether he ever did anything to confront the people he believed to be corrupt within his party, he says:
“I kicked (former Works Minister) Lorry Sant out of Parliament after he insulted me. Despite Mr Mintoff’s request to call him back in, I refused. I chased after him, calling him corrupt.”
How could he relate to his colleagues, some of whom were acting like thugs?
“Maybe I wasn’t mature enough? Maybe I could have worked in a different manner?” he ponders.
Dr Micallef says he always tried to fight for what was right and was well aware he was punching above his weight – he says Mr Mintoff was wary of him because he feared he could topple the government.
He says Mr Mintoff was playing with political fire when he gave the go-ahead to a controversial building steered by Lorry Sant close to Mount Carmel Hospital, which would have ruined a green area in Attard.
“I said I wanted the building demolished. Mr Mintoff came up to me and warned I risked being shot if I forged ahead with the threat. I said I would be honoured if they shot me.”
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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/110913/libyas-rebels-accused-illegal-arrests-and-revenge-killings
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/08/10/t15.html
And Claire Bonello writes Vote George, get Lorry.
I’d love to see her write something like that, way back then. And, mark my words, the only way Labour will be ‘expanding the economy’ is by relaxing the rules on building permits.
Claire who?
I remember the police on guard outside Daniel Micallef’s residence.
And we have a monument in one of our public spaces to honour this piece of trash.
And the party which represents almost 50 per cent of the electorate commemorates him.
If Claire Bonello (rightly) thinks so poorly of Lorry Sant, then she should campaign to have his monument removed, instead of using his name to denigrate this government.
Keep the monument there and let the pigeons roost on it.
The latest trend is to have monuments for everything.
Let’s keep Lorry Sant’s where it is and we will be the first country to have erected a monument commemorating CORRUPTION
I disagree. Only people who are truly deserving should have a monument dedicated to them after their death.
My guess is that the monument was made possible by Sant sympathisers using finances earned by corrupt means when Lorry Sant was minister.
One could also speculate that Labour agreed to commemorate him following an appropriate donation. The money donated was most likely of dubious origin earned during the Labour government of the eighties.
Why else would Labour expel Lorry Sant before his death and then decide to commemorate him afterwards?
If Daniel Micallef’s statement is correct, it proves that violence within the Malta Labour Party was condoned from its highest authority down.
Remember how it was said that ‘it was the thugs who in their zeal went a bit too far and il-Perit knew nothing about it…’?
Or how the police did not recognize anyone in the mob which burned down The Times?
Or how KMB had just left a truck load of hooligans who proceeded to trash the Curia?
Or how KMB had the police fly a helicopter over tal-Barrani relaying information where the terrified Nationalist supporters were taking cover and which streets were to be blocked to prevent them from making it safely home?
But thanks MLP for this incident because it may have been the catalyst for a Nationalist victory a few months later and the liberation of Malta from the clutches of the Socialist tyranny.
Lorry Sant was nasty and evil, every single bone in his body was corrupt and what surprises me most is the fact that most Labour supporters bury their head in the sand and ignore all evil committed under old Labour of the 70s and 80s. And some of them have been rehabilitated by new Labour.
Another good reason to give Joey the thumbs down in a year and a half’s time.
Being shot would be less gruesome than disappearing from among the living and being discovered many years later cut up in small pieces and disposed of in a Buskett cistern – still an authoritative word of advice from the worldly “wise” and not to be lightly dismissed.