Imagine what Super One would have said…
Somebody posted a comment to say that an ex policeman friend of his had been charged and disciplined in the 1980s for sheltering inside his own car one cold February night when on guard outside Dom Mintoff’s home, and Mintoff saw him and rang the Police Commissioner (see the post Here’s another one about Dom Mintoff, champion of the workers).
Now another former police officer, who I know, has emailed me to explain exactly what happened that night.
At 11pm, Mintoff rang Police Commissioner Lawrence Pullicino (he was later imprisoned for the murder of Nardu Debono) to rage about the fact that the policeman on guard duty outside his house was sitting inside a car to shelter from the weather.
There and then, Commissioner Pullicino summoned his staff, including Deputy Commissioner Mifsud Tommasi, from home to Police HQ, for the midnight drafting of a new internal regulation – known as a ‘circolari’.
This new regulation stated that police officers could not turn up for guard duty (‘fixed point’) in their own vehicles. They would have to walk there, take the bus, or be dropped off by somebody else.
The ‘circolari’ was ready and approved by 2am.
District police were informed immediately of this sudden nocturnal update in police regulations, by means of a telephone call from Floriana HQ.
Orders were given to check whether PC XYZ was at the Mintoff residence check-point in his personal vehicle – and if he was, that disciplinary proceedings should be brought against him.
Naturally, PC XYZ was caught in flagrante breaching an internal regulation which had not yet been drafted when he started his shift and of which he had not been made aware.
He was charged, found guilty and duly punished. And that particular Commmissioner of Police wrote a law thesis on human rights. But that’s another story, as is his imprisonment for the murder of a detainee at the Police HQ.
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These revaluations should be compiled into a book.
Mintoff never cared about the worker. Sadly, half of Malta thinks he was not evil or a dictator.
People should build up their courage and come forward with their horrible experiences endured under Mintoff’s regime.
The people must not reward MLP with a victory in the next election.
My feelings as well; these stories should be published to expose the man who trampled over everyone who touched him or even crossed his path.
When everyone thought that Mintoff and his horrible reign of terror had been consigned to the dustbin of history, here we go again with his ‘rehabilitation’ from being a traitor to his own party.
I’m not sure I follow the correlation between Mintoff’s questionable behaviour and the next election. Mintoff is not contesting the next election, right?
[Daphne – Yes, he is. In a long wig.]
Mintoffianism is contesting the next election. Mintoffianism without Dom but with the next “best” thing: his daughter.
and in the first district too .
How will she be excusing herself for her dear daddy’s decision to dump a highly polluting power station right in the middle of the densely populated inner and outer harbour area in the late seventies?
People used to call me mad when I used to tell them that Mintoff is the biggest coward on earth and that he despises workers.
Typical Mintoff. That should be made compulsory reading for the likes of all those who came out in full force to defend him, on The Times comments-board and elsewhere.
We should not be surprised if immediately after Mintoff dies there are a myriad biographies. Some will be sycophantic (written by somebody called Dominic Fenech); others will give the historical background to his life and effect on Malta (Henry Frendo and Joe Pirotta). Somebody may give us a Kitty Kelly biography with all the warts and bumps of this character. And his heiress Mintoff Bland will consult lawyers to see how she can sue the latter two versions.
Authentic history of the police department as run under Mintoff-Pullicino.
Way back in the 80’s the satirical newspaper il-Mhux had published a picture of is Salvatur riding a windsurfer.
An employee at Mid Med Bank’s Sliema branch distributed photocopies to some client ‘friends of his’. A loyal subject ‘difensur tal-haddiem ‘reported him and he was instantly dismissed.
Yes, he was given the sack whilst others (loyal subjects) were caught with their hand in the till got away with a slap on the wrist.
It was only through the intervention of a relative of his, who at the time occupied a very senior executive position in the civil service, that he was given his job back. The repurcussions remained though, and he eventually resigned.
And Mintoff was such a scrooge he would not have a sentry box made for outside his villa – waste of money
Actually Mintoff is an insult to Scrooge.
He used to take a lunch-box and vacuum flask filled with coffee every day to Castille, or to Parliament because ‘he was afraid that someone would poison him’.
More likely, he was afraid of having to pay for his lunch or supper because he was (is) such a cheapskate.
I remember very clearly those times. My family came back from the U.S. in 1986 and I remember packing loads of chocolate in our luggage.
I remember coming from Syracuse with watches (bought cheaply at a market stall) … stuffed into my bra, lest they were found and hefty tax would then have had to be paid on them.
The younger generation brought up under the PN government would find it hard to believe that it was normal in the 1970s and early 1980s to expect to pay a good Lm10 (23.29 Euros) to Lm25 customs duty, even if only a few paultry souvenirs were declared on returning to Malta. (Bearing in mind that any foreign currency taken out of Malta had to be listed on our passports, and that it could not exceed Lm100 (232.90 Euros) per person per year, and was meant to cover everything, including board and lodging … and shopping.
Mintoff managed to turn Maltese holidaymakers into criminals by having them break importation laws for bringing home ‘illegal’ presents bought with ‘illegally exported’ money.
The worst was that on our return we paid a “tax” on the value of any items we had bought and very rarely given a receipt. I have a moral certainty (a la Alfred Sant) that much of this money was pocketed by some of the customs officers.
…not to speak of the fact that such regulations (even if cirkolarijiet) cannot be retroactive, particularly if they have penal effects. It’s unconstitutional. But that’s the lawyer in me speaking. The dictator in Mintoff would not appreciate such legal niceties.
On a smaller magnitude of grievance, I remember workers putting up new ‘No Parking’ signs and then immediately fining all those parked there. Truth be told, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if such an occurrence were to happen now as well.
Apart from his vengeful attitude towards anyone who crossed his path and his vindictive settling of scores with rivals as soon as he became prime minister, everything else about Mintoff is phoney – the acquisition of independence for Malta, his professorship of democracy, his salvific role, his love of workers and their trade unions and God knows what else.
I will leave it to the Labourites themselves to decide finally whether his “treason” was real or only phoney.
@ Lomax Of course he woukdn’t. When he saw things not going his way he suspended the Constitutional Court and played musical chairs with judges and magistrates.
And when the end loomed menacingly near on the horizon Mintoff developed an understandable urge to pass his crown of thorns pronto on to the head of a hesitant, foot-dragging KMB who took such a long time to notify that he was actually “ready”.
And this old same “cirkolari” is still in force