Has The Times forgotten that the original reports of the National Bank of Malta court case are in its archives?
From the sworn testimony of Philip Attard Montalto, one of the National Bank of Malta directors at the time of Mintoff’s onslaught, as given in court in 1980, and reported in The Times over a full page the following day.
SIGNING AWAY SHARES
At one time, Mr Louis Galea referred to the documents the shareholders had been requested to sign. Mr Mintoff said that those shareholders who did not sign would have been personally responsible for the outcome.
That evening he was going to pass either of two laws in Parliament. One would have set up a Council of Administration to take care
of the Banking Group’s assets and liabilities; the other would have taken away the limited liabilities of all the shareholders.
The Attorney General had then also affirmed that two Bills had been drafted.
The witness further stated that the shareholders had offered major resistance to the giving up of their shares and that it was only after several meetings that the shareholders were left with no doubt as to the limited liability threat. Many shareholders had signed away their shares for this reason, and no other.
I read Austin Bencini’s piece about the subject in The Times today, and what he said about the Attorney General, Edgar Mizzi, does not fit with this first-hand account by one of the directors present at the meeting.
My grandfather’s account – he was also present – was exactly the same as Mr Attard Montalto’s.
Mr Mizzi’s account, in his biography, was different, as Austin Bencini points out. I vaguely recall writing about this when the autobiography was published some years ago. It was the first thing that struck me.
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Here is what Dr Bencini wrote.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120525/opinion/Pending-challenge-still-facing-National-Bank-shareholders.421241
I think it’s about time someone came up with a flow diagram showing the business architecture of the country, who’s who, which individuals sit on which boards and who the newspapers belong to.
The impression I get, is that of a saddled media. It’s vaguely familiar.
In 2013, this will not be necessary. At the very top of every flow chart, there will be Joseph Muscat.
“Redacted” , “sanitization ” or “selective memory” spring to mind.
Who certified her dead??
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120525/local/swedish-diver-dies-after-cardiac-arrest.421281
Edgar Mizzi’s account is of a meeting in which, conveniently, all others present are either dead or compromised.
Unfortunately for Mr Mizzi (may he rot in hell and welcome Dom Mintoff when he arrives) several survivors remember Mintoff’s threats only too well.
Why would Peter Dacoutros, starring on the Labour Party’s One TV, feel the urge to lie about such a matter?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120505/letters/Black-night-in-bank-history-1-.418386
More to the point, why would Mrs Attard Montalto lie about the matter?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120505/letters/Black-night-in-bank-history-2-.418387
Ara tmurx int l-infern qablu ja zibel!
Ma tantx hemm cans ghax Mintoff ga sieq wahda fil-qabar u lestewlu siggu jahraq fl-infern.
There he goes again – using vulgar insulting words. Poor man, he cannot do any better.
mandango70, life for many – though, apparently, not yourself – was hell on earth under Mintoff.
And here’s another one who remembers threats being made:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120515/letters/Justice-over-National-Bank-1-.419856
Quite why we should believe the self-serving biography of yet another of Mintoff’s dirty rotten bastards is beyond me.
Until 1994, Edgar Mizzi kept an office next to the staircase leading to the strangers’ gallery. It was considered off limits, and when the space was chosen to install a new substation, he refused to budge.
The joke was that he didn’t trust anyone with the amount of documents and dossiers that would have had to be transferred.
Astrid Vella is commenting on the comments board of timesofmalta.com under Peter Dacoutros’ letter that an elderly lady had died of a cardiac arrest as a result of the stressful and distressing events of the policemen turning up late at night and forcing people to sign over their National Bank shares.
The mind boggles. So, she knows, personally apparently, what we’ve been through. She knows that what Daphne and all of us write here is not some work of fiction or a figment of our imagination but rather what most of us experienced first-hand, and yet she sets up shop on Super One and lambasts the government through that ghastly and self-serving FAA.
Frankly, it is people like Astrid Vella who gave all this power to Franco Debono, because had there not been the vote haemorrhage in places like Sliema, the PN would have got at least one more seat and Franco Debono would have become an insignificant jerk.
So, Astrid, it is useless now decrying what happened 30 and 40 years ago if your behaviour helps give us a Labour government and helped give us the Franco factor now. Believe me, you did more than your fair share to ensure that those people who did those horrible things to us be re-elected.
And if they are elected, you will have yourself and your spoilt chummy-buddies to blame.
[Daphne – I can’t say she’s worried about the thought of a Labour government. They’re bound to make her a token woman chair’person’.]