How Charlon Gouder got thumped (again) in Gzira last Sunday

Published: November 12, 2011 at 9:03pm

Charlon Gouder, far left: he's not a fussy kind of guy, and is quite content to hang out with magistrates and alleged bank robbers too.

I apologise for dragging you away from Vince Farrugia on Dissett, but I have some news.

Last Sunday afternoon, Jason Micallef, ex Labour Party secretary-general and current chairman of the Labour Party’s broadcasting network, took a break from meeting up with his boyfriend Ronnie Pellegrini and instead hung out at the Medasia bar on the Gzira Strand with the following individuals.

1. Ray Azzopardi, perennial Labour Party public relations man and long-term lover of a hairdresser who was murdered some years ago, by a teenage boy he had picked up in Gzira and tried to sodomise in his hairdressing salon at night (I say this for context);

2. Charlon Gouder, Super One reporter, ageing ‘this time I might pass’ law student and star of a notorious YouTube video featuring a close encounter with a woman who stole his wallet in Albertown;

and

3. David Gatt, a police inspector turned lawyer who is currently being tried for involvement in the criminal underworld, for attempted murder and bank robbery.

Truly, it isn’t safe to go out anymore because you never know who might be at the next table.

Charlon and Jason were, one assumes, taking a break from their wives for this unofficial meeting of LGBT Labour – Ronnie must have been tied up, unusually – or perhaps they were all just playing a Mafia board-game while serving as unwitting aliases for David Gatt (“No, your honour, I wasn’t robbing a bank or plotting a murder. I was having a beer with Jason Micallef and Charlon Gouder.”).

A man walked into the bar and Gatt stood up to greet him, then introduced him to his companions, Jason, Charlon and Ray, as a man who is quite pleasant and tolerable except for the fact that he is a “Nazzjonalist”.

“I don’t know how people like you keeping voting for the Nationalist Party,” Charlon said to this man he’d just met (in Maltese, but I’ve translated loosely), like somebody who learned his manners in some whorehouse. “You’d better jump on board with us, or before you know it, it’s too late and we’ll have left without you. You’ll be left behind, waving to us from the shore.”

Upon which, the man ignored the unspoken rule never to hit a man who wears glasses, and socked him straight in the face, smashing his spectacles.

The police were not called, and the matter was not reported in the newspapers.

But this is not the main story, is it?

The main story is that three prominent Labour Party figures were drinking in a bar on a Sunday afternoon with a former police officer who is right now being tried for involvement in murder attempts and organising top-scale robberies.

Did I hear somebody say skip? Oh yes, that was me.




57 Comments Comment

  1. Whoami? says:

    Xi ohra jonqsu, mhux ga kien qala wahda f’xi nightclub fir-Rabat? Min jaf ghala hux?

    Tawwal ilsienu rega.

    U min jaf kemm laghbitlu go wiccu il-mara (l-gharusa dak iz-zmien) wara il-‘car jack’ ta’ Albertown. It was a car-jack, or rather jack in the car.

  2. Neil Dent says:

    BINGO! Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish!

    It’s become difficult to pick out a single honourable one among the whole sad, sickening lot.

    I refer to all of those in the Labour Party who will be seeking our votes in a year or so, or those like the above individuals who will be helping out in the grand Labour election project.

  3. Albert Town says:

    X’kien qed jaghmel Charlon Gouder?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsK_1yuFRsI

    • Not Tonight says:

      Not having yet been introduced to this site at the time, most of the connections mentioned in this video were unknown to me as they must have been unknown to a vast majority of the population.

      Vera ghandna gurnalisti ta’ l-isem biss, reqdin raqda nobis u iktar interessati li jghattu milli jikxfu dak li hu ta’ nteress pubbliku.

      As a voter, it would have been of great interest to me to know that a particular candidate was, or had been, romantically involved with a hardened criminal, for example.

      Ara min irid jghajjat bil-koruzzjoni!

  4. Neil Dent says:

    I may be wrong, but Charlon gives the impression of a guy who only needs a whiff of the bottle to get a little….excitable. This is based on his past (now public) record, mentioned above.

    I’d suggest he sticks to soft drinks, or a nice cuppa, while out in public? I think he’ll find it a lot less painful and embarrassing in the long run.

    If I’d been in his aggressor’s place, I doubt I’d have hit Charlon (so readily), but he’d have gotten an epic bollocking for his arrogance, no matter who his drinking buddies were.

  5. Min Weber says:

    This story is very, very strange.

    What is really going on?

    • maryanne says:

      Hopefully, Joseph Muscat will tell us tomorrow morning during his Sunday sermon.

    • Harry Purdie says:

      What is really going on, Min, is that Labour’s dark side is raising its thuggish head above the parapet. And the boy leader is clueless, helpless and useless to combat it.

    • Jozef says:

      Party financing, this time led by those who installed their puppet and who have a contingency plan should Labour lose.

      Consider it an investment. What a lot people forget, is the advantages of having a single currency.
      Very convenient if someone across the channel found himself cornered and risk having assets confiscated.

  6. Grezz says:

    Put the political implications aside. If Charlon Gouder threw a party for his friends, the invitees would include the magistrate in the photograph and possibly also David Gatt, given what we now know.

  7. Vanni says:

    First Albertown, now Gzira, where next?

    The fella does believe in slumming (and being a charitable soul, I’m not referring to his drinking companions).

  8. maryanne says:

    We expect the PL to be prudent, honest and transparent about the kind of friends they keep.

  9. Silvio Farrugia says:

    These people always had criminals as their friends and blue eyed boys.We remember ‘Fussellu ” as one of many

  10. Paul V Xuereb says:

    Interesting! Resorting to violence is never the answer. The fact that he did resort to violence is only going to take away focus from the story you are really pointing to.

    Personally i think resorting to violence is only proof of one’s lack of counter argument.

    • Zachary Stewart says:

      Indeed, the fact that an assault is not the main story, but guilt by association is speaks volumes about Malta under the PN: your fascist roots are showing.

  11. Pat says:

    Qisha xi xena mil-Wild West din!

    Dawk it-tlieta veru bla mohh biex jaghmluha u jidhru fil-pubbliku, anzi f`bar, ma’ bniedem ta’ dik il-kwalita`.

    U l-iehor lanqas ma ikkomporta ruhu sew ehh, ghax il-vjolenza fisika qatt ma suppost tkun ittollerata, irrispettivament x`qallu. Ma kellux ilsien biex jirrispondih? Jew jinjorah u jistmah talli hu?

    Daphne, just have to say this, though. You could have spared Alfie`s family the pain and humiliation , yet again. They went through more than enough and , in my opinion, were the real victims of that sad story. I don`t know them, but really feel for that poor wife and the two daughters.

    [Daphne – The real victims are the mother and family, in Libya, of the teenage boy, who spoke neither English nor Maltese, who was sentenced to life in a Maltese prison while barely knowing what was going on at his trial. And though the daughters are victims too, the wife certainly is not. Any woman who stays with her husband (and keeps her daughters in that situation too) despite knowing that he has a full-on male lover who is recognised as ‘official’ – which is why the entire hierarchy of the Labour Party was at his funeral – just so she can carry on living in the manner to which she is accustomed, takes the words ‘completely lacking in dignity and responsibility’ to a whole new level. I am a great one for forgiving and trying to forget, but not when the situation is ongoing. Fine, she may not have known that her husband was cruising Gzira at night for random boys to sodomise against payment, but she certainly knew about Ray Azzopardi. Do you know what shocked me at the time, Pat? That people had plenty to say about the ‘Libyan killer’ (I’d like to know what their views would have been had that sordid old man tried to penetrate their teenage – and not gay – sons using coercion) but not one word to say about the circumstances in which the hairdresser died. It was like a massive conspiracy of silence and twisted principles.]

  12. david says:

    The PN should be publishing and investigating these stories. God knows what power these people will have when Labour is in government.

    • Cactus Gulch says:

      It’s not their (allegedly) criminal friends which frighten me so much as their criminal stupidity, and their terrible arrogance in thinking they can socialise in bars with individuals being tried for serious crimes.

      • ciccio2011 says:

        Serious crimes?
        Not as serious as Labour’s. For Labour, bank branch hold-ups are petty stuff. Mintoff seized entire banks.

  13. Edward Caruana Galizia says:

    You’d better jump on board with us, or before you know it, it’s too late and we’ll have left without you. You’ll be left behind, waving to us from the shore.”

    What does he mean by that exactly?

    Should we all vote Labour because if we don’t and they win then all PN and AD voters will be “left behind”? Are they planning on carrying out some sort of vendetta against their opposers?

    I think these are questions worth answering.

    • Pecksniff says:

      Joe Debono Grech once said that in his inimitable more down to earth way. After the 1971 election, he put a notice in l-Orizzont (where else ?) that his door was open to Laburisti only.

  14. pazzo says:

    I am going to re-read ‘Excellent Cadavers’ to refresh my memory.

    • Jozef says:

      I strongly recommend you add Sciascia’s ‘A ciascuno il suo’ to your reading list. Reading it will make you think the author followed this blog for inspiration.

  15. Hot Mama says:

    I imagine this is what Alfred Sant is saying: Do you miss me yet?

    For all his faults as a politician, he tried to clean the Labour Party of lowlifes, thugs, scum … Yes, that’s you too Ronnie, Jason, Charlon…

  16. Joe Micallef says:

    Birds of a feather flock together.

  17. MaltaToday says:

    Why the PN? Why not the independent media like Malta Today, which loves a good scandal even when it doesn’t see one.

  18. Stacey says:

    Is Charlon going to press charges?

  19. Stacey says:

    Why was this ‘incident’ not reported on Sniper One?

  20. Pecksniff says:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/12/maria-laura-rodota-italy-crisis

    By the way, the comments are far more interesting than the article !

  21. Antoine Vella says:

    As long as no handbag is involved, it’s all run-of-the-mill for Charlon Gouder.

    He’s famously afraid of handbags of course; as soon as he sees a handbag coming he hides behind a microphone (he’s convinced microphones repel handbags).

  22. Dee says:

    What a weird story.

    Why would Jason Micallef wish to be seen in public with David Gatt?

    What unspeakable sleaze and what crass stupidity.

  23. Francis Saliba MD says:

    The “main story” is that, may be, a relapse to the days when the Malta Police Force was run by criminal officers advancing the interests of the MLP, is again being plotted in aid of a variant LP. .

  24. Herbie says:

    Guess what? Charlon was having lunch at Bacchus at Mdina last Wednesday. Who with? None other than Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, and if I am not mistaken, Musumeci too. I wonder whether they accepted his offer to sail with him.

  25. 'Angus Black says:

    The essence of sleaze keeps oozing out of these characters and what’s worse, it seems that they are proud of displaying publicly, their low esteem, their low IQ and their unpleasant qualities.

  26. carmel says:

    Oh Daphne, you have become a soviet spy in Democratic Malta.

  27. John Schembri says:

    Robert Musumeci said he quit politics.

  28. Shoot…me and my early Sunday nights… I was there that night…and I bet that there was going to be a juicy story for you to write about. I didn’t see David Gatt though, …he must have arrived later. I almost feel cheated that I went home at a decent hour and missed out on all this….but hey, at least I won the bet :)!

    [Daphne – David Gatt must have LEFT. This happened in the afternoon. Were they still hanging about in the evening? They must have very patient wives. Really progressive, I must say, spending their Sundays drinking all men together like (some of) those of a much older generation.]

  29. Oh there I go….I thought I could comment without adding any more juice to the story…. after having resisted writing about it myself this HURTS :)

    [Daphne – Yes, Alison, it was around 3.30pm/4pm]

  30. ok I’m only going to say this….I got there at 4pm sharp….none of them were around till about 5:30pm-6pm and there was no trouble at all. I don’t want to have to doubt your source, but this is what I saw….did they come back to the scene of the crime?

    [Daphne – My source is watertight and known to me. Perhaps they nipped out to get Mr Gouder a fresh pair of spectacles.]

  31. So, they left Sliema (though Gzira sounded better), picked up another pair of glasses for Gouder, picked up another sporty colleague, and came back to the scene of the crime? Occam’s razor ?

    [Daphne – Look, Alison. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here, but it’s only very small children who think that things don’t happen just because they’re not there to see them. This is Occam’s razor: if it weren’t true, you can be bloody sure that Super One news that same evening would have been thick with my photograph, screen captures of this website, and plenty of words like ‘gideb fahxi’. . Perhaps you’ve forgotten already what Charlon Gouder did when I asked his cameraman why he wasn’t with him, whether perhaps he was with some whore. He went straighter to his lawyers and then to the police. But he can’t very well do that now. Incidentally, I know the person who told me of the incident rather better than I know you, so…]

  32. All I’m saying is that if it did happen, it certainly didn’t happen at the time and place that your witness says it did… one of them is off. If this is childish to point out, then so be it.

    [Daphne – Alison, the fact that you weren’t there at the time does not mean it didn’t happen. That sort of reasoning is fallacious. I never said you were childish (as if), but only that you are making assumptions, which is not a good idea as you have no way of knowing who told me about it.]

  33. Thanks I feel much better now :) Daphne – I never said it didn’t happen, hence the ‘if’ in my opening statement. I questioned the timing, not because I couldn’t have missed it (as I said I arrived at 4pm sharp), but because if they returned to the scene an hour or so later, they’re weirder than weird. But I guess that’s no news to you or anyone reading this blog :)

    [Daphne – Come on, Alison, let’s not bicker about this. It’s obvious that I can’t say everything on this blog. I usually know more details than I can give away.]

Reply to Daphne Caruana Galizia Click here to cancel reply