Excuse me? Can you repeat that?
Published:
April 22, 2012 at 9:46am
This is in a report today, in The Sunday Times, about the woman found dead in her car in Bahar ic-Caghaq. How can something like this be dropped into the story almost in passing, and then let go?
It would seem to me to be the main news here.
Did he suffer a ‘natural causes’ attack brought on by the stress of being under interrogation, or was he roughed up because he’s a Libyan accused of ‘doing something’ to a Maltese woman?
This is precisely the sort of the thing the public has a right to know, rather than whether the deceased had a handbag with her or not.
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It’s just after 10.00am and your questions were those I asked myself when i read the Times report. How about the police releasing some info to the press once Malta’s prime investigative newspaper will not do the obvious and ask some really pertinent questions.
The only comments up till now on timesofmalta.com :
Albert Farrugia
Today, 09:28
What exactly does it mean that Dr Mifsud’s former husband is in hospital after being questioned by the police? Was he hurt during interrogation? Did the interrogation trigger some illness? Was the man arrested because he happens to be Libyan-born? If he were Maltese born, would he have been arrested?
Joseph Cauchi Senior
Today, 09:41
Why do we always have to speculate?
Has this become a Maltese past-time?
JC.
I think that the comment by Joseph Cauchi Senior will be the “official” reply , perhaps by tomorrow morning, after all today is Sunday, day of rest and all that.
I think that with a nudge and a wink The Times has taken a leaf out of Italian gutter journalism: “sbatti il mostro in prima pagina” (splash the monster on the front page) as fodder for their readers.
A lot of fuss is being made of the woman’s missing handbag; could it have been taken by a completely extraneous third party out to make a quick buck after she was already dead?
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I thought. After all, when that motorcyclist crashed and died some months ago, somebody took the trouble to go through his things and steal his wallet even before the police arrived.]
Did she have a cell phone and was it used after she went missing?
[Daphne – It was switched off.]
I know that clues and CSI type investigation are not the forte of Malta’s finest; they rely on a confession, either they browbeat or literally beat it out of you (Nardu Debono finished up dead at Police HQ and was then dumped in Qormi Valley).
Bob: What exactly do you mean by your comment ?
According to the report, he was interrogated because he was previously reported to the police by the victim, where he was accused with allegedly trying to strangle her. Fair grounds to interrogate him and no discrimination until that point.
I’d like to know what happened after that.
Yes, the public has the right to know why this Libyan national is in hospital after interrogation by the police.
The single line above does not render an information service, which is what we expect from the media, but a speculation service.
He deserves all he gets
The rule of law should prevail. There is no law that says anyone should be roughed up during interrogation, though the Golden Years champions would have had us believe otherwise.
Which leads me to question the meaning of Joseph Muscat’s statement that a Labour government will be the “biggest enemy to bureaucracy.”
Does that mean that under a Labour government we will have no rule of law, like in the Golden Years?
No. We will have compulsory readings of Kafka over the office tannoy.
Can we have readings from Kim Il Sung’s instead? They might actually sound cheering.
What you are saying is very pertinent.
Particularly, since there is another piece of news regarding a man who fell off the bastions while in police custody.
Then there was the Dutch guy who claimed he was beaten up …
Aren’t there too many coincidences?
Mr Rizzo, who has been an officer since the 80s, should perhaps explain.
I was shocked by the very same sentence when I read the article online this morning.
There are many ways to get information from someone without beating them up. It seems that our policemen are not professional enough to question a suspect professionally and they resort to violence. We heard this far too many times before, it sickens me that the PN failed to address this issue seriously.
Daphne you yourself have been the wrong end of the stick with the police, when they tried to frame you.
The fact this man had beaten the victim before and was expected to be arraigned in court is an eye opener – I wonder had the police picked him up at the time of the report?
How safe was the now victim and her children (not to mention her parents with whom they were living) from this person? Was this case marking normal time? Wasn’t it an urgent case, as are all cases of wife beatings?
If the police failed to act quickly on that occasion, they shouldn’t try to take it out on the man now.
[Daphne – Please just stop it. The relationship between the dead woman and the father of her children is none of our business, and that is quite apart from the fact that police reports made by one spouse/partner against another do not necessarily reflect the truth. Police stations all over the island receive hundreds of these reports routinely. They are used as a weapon in anger or vindictiveness. The people who are truly at risk almost never file a report.]
Strange, and here was I thinking he got picked up and eventually ended in hospital because of his relationship with the dead woman.
The people who make routine reports are generally well known to the police because they follow a pattern. Have you ever been at risk from your partner, reported to the police and was told better to get out of the house because if you went back to your house – late at night with a daughter, in the middle of a storm – they couldn’t guarantee they could patrol the area?
I can assure you the driving force behind such a report is fear and believe it or not, extreme embarrassment!
When you’ve gone through that then you can review your opinion on whether this is our business or not.
[Daphne – It is DEFINITELY none of our business. You merely want to know, not need to know.]
That sentence is precisely what caught my e on reading The Sunday Times today. I immediately assumed that he was roughed up, unlessthe newspaper bungled the wording.
Playing the devil’s advocate. It is not unknown for people under interrogation to genuinely faint or to feign disease (e.g. heart attack) to get out of a tight corner. The police usually play safe, call in doctors and rely on their advice.