Shot dead at 26 by Mintoff’s thugs
Perhaps we should ask his parents whether the good that Mintoff did outweighed the bad. That was a shameful statement.
And if another cretinous Nationalist politician or electoral candidate is feeling the urge to spout sanctimonious drivel during these two days of national mourning and tomorrow’s offensive charade, let them keep the dead body of Raymond Caruana before their eyes.
Let us not forget, either, that the gun which killed him was linked in investigations, though not conclusively, to Il-Botom, cabinet minister Karmenu Vella’s driver at the time.
That’s the tragic irony of life and death. Raymond Caruana has been dead for these last 25 years, while that jerk Karmenu Vella, who knows nothing about anything except how to make a buck for himself, is gearing up to become a cabinet minister YET AGAIN.
This country is insane.
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Do u remember a certain Dennis from Hamrun who was left fighting for his life for two days after he was savagely attacked by thugs and policemen during the annual Independence demonstration? How come no one ever mentions him?
[Daphne – Arrigo?]
No surely not, he was a young man …try and look it up..his chest was totally opened up he nearly bled to death…how can it be people are forgetting this grave incident…i ll remember the surname and i will post it for sure..
[Daphne – I seem to remember Dennis Arrigo getting caught up in an attack, and I know he lived in Hamrun at the time. But this is probably a different case.]
Daphne : If I`m not mistaken that man is Dennis Busuttil and at the moment he have an insurance agency at St. Joseph High str Hamrun.
Two word.. Zeppi l-Hafi !
[Daphne – Zeppi l-Hafi is actually three words, not two. You failed to count the definite article. And anyway, what about him?]
mhux isaqsi l siehbek Efa xsar minhu ? dak kien habib sew tijaw sahansitra tah mahfra presidenzjali!
I remember that. I do not think his surname was Arrigo. If I recall correctly, it was Sammut.
Ic-city, the problem is that there were so many that it’s hard to remember them all.
What’s shameful is that someone like Eddie Fenech Adami comes out saying those words! I am finding it hard to understand his motive, maybe let’s call it protocol.
He was a friend of mine: Dennis Busuttil who owned a grocery shop on St Joseph Road.
[Daphne – So another incident then. Will you tell us more about it?]
That’s it. Dennis Busuttil.
On the 21s September 1975 there were battle scenes in Valletta. MLP supporters and policemen wielding truncheons attacked a peaceful PN demonstration commemorating the 11th anniversary of Malta’s Independence. Dr Albert Borg Olivier de Puget, a PN MP and Dr Joe Cachia, a PN candidate were hit, the latter needing 6 stitches. The police also attacked a certain Mr Baldacchino from Qormi and a Mr Incorovaja, a chiropodist whilst well-known labour supporters, including a certain Pappalardo, tried to set fire to the jeep at the front of the demonstration. Dr Guido Demarco was also hit by police truncheons. Dennis Busuttil was 17 at the time. He was hit on the head by an iron rod and ended up in hospital in danger of losing his life. In fact, he was operated upon for the removal of a piece of bone from his brain.
No, Dennis Busuttil from Hamrun
He is sometimes shown in a picture being carried with blood from his head – I think it was in 1974 – 75.
he was hit in the head by a heavy metal object which caused a serious cranial wound.
It’s a miracle he is still alive.
No. Busutill. I happened to be speaking to him the day after Dom snuffed it.
We exchanged reminiscences of what it was like living under the Mintoff regime. He was a young teenager at the time who ended with a fractured skull in St Luke’s fighting for his life.
Is-salvatur’s regime spared no one when it came to stamping on basic human rights be they young teenagers out to celberate Independence or octagerians exercising their right to attend a political meeting of the opposition.at Tal Barrani.
I know Dennis and I can assure you that it was him and it happened as descibed. Never forgotten! He was with Guido de Marco that day.
The bastard Mintoff shall rot in hell. If he does a year for each person he made to suffer, it will not be enough. But then hell is eternal.
[Daphne – So it was Dennis Arrigo then. I remembered correctly. I knew him at the time through the MADC, so when it happened, I just couldn’t believe it and it stayed with me. He was so quiet. Imagine attacking somebody like him.]
No, Dennis Busuttil not Arrigo.
Why did Eddie say that Mintoff had more good than bad in him?
Because he was comparing him to Zeppi il-Hafi.
Because when Jesus said “Turn the other cheek”, they thought he meant “Punch yourself in the face very hard.”
Because he’s thinking of his future funeral …. and he also wants all the trappings.
Raymond Caruana lying in a pool of blood is one of my earliest recollections. I was only six years old at the time but that photo remains imprinted in my mind.
I remember hiding the newspaper and looking at the picture from time to time. I can never delete it from memory.
I also remember the 1987 elections and the tension in our household.
The relief when the result was announced, with my mother and I racing to my grandparents’ house at night to share the joy, and with mum scared to death that somebody was going to stop us in the street.
I went to Sliema by bus from Msida the day after Raymond was killed by Mintoff’s savages and nobody said anything at all. They were too scared.
I went to the hairdresser for a procedure which took quite a long time and all the while nobody mentioned the atrocious way in which a young man had been murdered. They were too scared.
I totally agree. I honestly believe that the bad by far outweighed the good.
I do not expect such comments from people who should know better!
It is commendable that we remember Raymod Caruana.
But let’s not forget Karen Grech.
[Daphne – She was almost certainly killed by their lot, Silvio. The bomb arrived after her father called time on his commitment to breaking the strike. The chief suspect at the time is today a Labour local politician.]
I’m not questioning who did it,what I’m saying is, we should remember her as much as all the others.
Silvio, we remember her more than the others. There’s no hospital named after Raymond Caruana and no prominent monument to commemorate him.
And one of the original forensic experts appointed at the time, the son of a Labour Minister as well.
Convenient I always thought.
Nero burnt Rome and then blamed the Christians. Hitler burnt the Reichstag and then blamed the Jews and his political opponents,
Issa jistenbah xi helu jigi jghid li dak fil-passat.
It-tort ta’ Raymond Caruana kien li nzerta faccata ta’ antiporta tal-hgieg. Mintoff lanqas tniffes, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici lanqas ndenja jattendi ghal-funeral, Il-Partit laburista ma’ baghat lil hadd jirraprezentah. Joe Brincat mar bhala persuna privata.
Ghidli min ghandu jisthi.
Jekk il-Labour mhux ser jifhmu li l-bierah, eluf kienu quddiem is-sett u ma’ felhux izommu tbissima, mhux b’inkejja, imma ghax kellha bzonn tohrog biex setghu hassewhom ahjar, qatt mhu se jifhmu dan il-pajjiz.
Do you remember karen grech? She s dead also. How come you never mention her? Nationalists have been in govt for 25 years and you are right investigations were not conclusive!!!
[Daphne – I never mention her because she was almost certainly killed by one of your own, and I feel terrible for her parents because of this.]
Grech was murdered in 1977. The Socialists had 10 years to solve the case if they really wanted to. And they expect a Nationalist administration to find the culprits.
What about Nardu Debono beaten to death in police custody.
And Ganni l-Pupa, who after trying to leave his Labour-thug past behind, died a mysterious death. http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2011/02/ganni-l-pupa-julia-farrugias-father-karmenu-vellas-ministerial-car-a-submachine-gun-and-what-joseph-muscats-shadow-foreign-minister-refused-to-say-in-court/
This reminds me of the poor excuse that Labour are bringing about those vioelent years
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‘Ghax Mintoff kellu madwaru erba’ mqarbin li ghamlu li riedu.’
Given that he was a giant and such a great leader, we have to conclude one of two things. It’s either he was no giant and no great leader but rather an incompetent one or else he approved.
It’s for the Laburisti to choose.
maryanne, you are absolutely correct.
Laburisti have to choose which of the two is the correct one.
If Dom Mintoff was as they are describing him then most of his ministers were responsible for all the wrong doings taken place during their tenure and this means that Joseph Muscat is offering the electorate a cabinet full of ‘imqarbin’ li jekk nafdawhom jergghu jaghmlu li jridu.
On the other hand if the toll fell on Mintoff then the PL is trying to fool the people by disguising ‘an incompetent leader’ in a giant political leader.
Two days of national mourning, eh. I’m surprised the prime minister hasn’t also ordered us to attach a piece of black cloth to our front doors for six months, and to donate this week’s wages to MintoffJana’s new fund.
The two days of mourning had a good effect on Sliema at least: there was considerably less traffic this evening, the seafront was conspicuously quiet, it was absolutely no hassle to park and, best of all, there was hardly any “racanc” out. Presumably, they were all glued to One TV.
You will certainly never get a state funeral, you pile of disgusting shit
[Daphne – Obviously not. I’m a newspaper columnist, not a former prime minister. I believe you imagine that Mintoff has had a state funeral because he was Mintoff, and not because he was prime minister. Labour: always missing the finer points.]
How can anyone deny or forget the tal – Barrani incidents? I was there. Shot at, pelted at, and driven out. All in the name of love, co-existence and for the greater good. Bollocks.
I remember that Independence day very clearly. Some kind soul helped me out of there with his hand over my eyes to protect me from the tear gas. I coughed for three days non stop after that. The bastards.
And for the under-forties, who do not remember what happened there and think Labour is cool, all our pleas to the police for help were ignored.
During a Nationalist Party meeting in Rabat, together with some friends, we were trapped in a short alley between two groups of Mintoff’s thugs hurling stones and broken bottles our way.
We begged the police for help to get us out of there and they just laughed and pretended not to hear us.
A lady in one of the houses there signalled to us from her balcony that she would open the door discreetly and in the dark for us to go into her house until it was all over.
No. The tal – Barrani incidents had nothing to do with any Independence Day Festivities. In fact they occurred on 30th November 1986. It was all about a legally sanctioned Nationalist Party meeting due to be held at Zejtun which KMB and the rest of the Labour Party deemed highly unacceptable. They barred the way to the Nationalist supporters aided by the Police Force, Armed Forces, a helicopter hovering overhead and various armed and hooded criminals all firing indiscrminately and pelting bottles and stones. Many people were injured. Some quite seriously.
I am referring to the independence day festivities at the Fosos in Floriana.
At one point there was an announcement that a convoy of trucks carrying Labour supporters had come in and that everybody should try to get away.
The police began throwing loads of tear gas to disperse the crowd, rather than those Labour supporters.
I am not talking about tal-Barrani. That was a different story altogether.
And what about the young man who was chased and shot by the SMU police following a PN meeting at Rabat on the eve of the 1987 election. He died a short while later as a direct result of the trauma he was subjected to that day.
And also Lino Cauchi kidnapped in Valetta during what Il-Guy refers to as zmien helu tad-deheb, brutally murdered with a blow to the head, cut into pieces with a saw, and then dumped into a disused well in Buskett, solely because of his knowledge of crooked dealings involving Labour Party diehards.
What good could ever outweigh the killings, suffering and injustice that was the hallmark of the Mintoff and then KMB-led 16 year period of government?
And what about the young man Pavia who was shot by police in a Rabat PN meeting? He died a day before he was meant to take the witness stand against a certain policeman called Grech, brother of Josette ‘Xandir Malta’ Grech who later married Norman Hamilton.
Does anyone recall how and why il-Fusellu was killed? They used to say he was Mintoff’s son, if he was not, he behaved as if he truly was Mintoff’s son.
[Daphne – He was shot by one Louis Bartolo in St Julian’s.]
Wilfred Cardona, Nardu Debono and Lino Cauchi also come to mind.
About Karin Grech; she was the victim of the doctors’ dispute with Mintoff. What did the PN have to do on the doctor’s strike, wasn’t it Mintoff’s confrontational attitude which brought everyone in a miserable state in the health sector. The death rate at St Lukes quadrupled in the first years of that strike.
The same ‘reasoning’ is applied with Labour logic on the “dnub il-mejjet” and “il-Mizbla”. What did the PN do wrong about these issues. Should it have intervened in favour of “is-suldati tal-azzar’ with the Maltese Curia?
The Dennis I know from Hamrun, who was close to death, was Dennis Busuttil. He was hit in the head by a chunk of metal (the one used to cover the water mains, in the form of a hexagon [tappiera]).
His photograph featured prominently being helped by the late Guido DeMarco on In-Nazzjon Taghna.
Right you are. I attest to that. He is still very much alive and kicking ……..and NO THANKS TO MINTOFF EITHER!
For people like Mr Busuttil and countless others who were victimized in Dom’s Golden Era, the comments made by the PN administration and the church representatives is nothing short of unashamed apologism for that bastard!
Maybe some are already quacking in their boots at the thought of a neo mintoffian government in a few months time. THAT IS WHY THEY ARE NOW DEIFYING IS-SALVATUR TRADITUR.
IT IS NOTHING SHORT OF A COWARD APPEASING THE SOCIALIST MONSTER IN THE HOPE THAT HE WILL BE THE LAST THAT GETS GOBBLED UP!
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There is a list of people who were/are forgotten.: Lino Cauchi, Wilfred Cardona, Lino Manfre, Nardu Debono, (attempts on) Busuttil who was famous for the police frame-up. Those were the days!! Those were the Golden Years!!
If I am not mistaken his name is Dennis Busuttil from Hamrun and he was hit on the head by a ‘tappira’ thrown by il-Fusellu and friends from the roof of the Bank of Valletta branch in Republic Street during a PN Independence demonstration during the early seventies when Gorg Borg Olivier was PN leader.
[Daphne – Vallapena, hej. Serqu bank ha joqghodu jdahlu l-dak il-kriminal ta’ Fusellu jitfa l-affarijiet ghal fuq in-nies. Progressivi u liberali – ahjar nibku. Maa, x’zibel ta’ nies. Jaqq, jaqq u jaqq. Vote Labour? Yes, when I have a lobotomy.]
would I shit on you? yes, it would be my hobby!
Niftakar li mal-Fusellu kien hemm dik il-lezbjana tal-Mandragg.
yes – I remeber – you WANTED TO GO INTO THE FIRE hux – yes, you got burned, and cried a lot later – yes, and you are still wimpering – stupid LOL
I just now worked it out that Mintoff was elected as MP in 96 at the age of 80.
This is mind blowing.
At 82 he brought down his own government.
Is he the oldest MP ever?
Please don’t forget a man known as ‘Il-Fox’ who was shot in the head probably by Wistin’s thugs while canvassing for Josie Muscat. The bullet is still in his head today.
Dak kien Dennis Busuttil meta qala daqqa ta’ bicca hadida li kienet mitfuha min fuq il-Bank of Valletta. Dan Dennis kien gie intlaqat waqt l-ewwel celebrazzjoni ta l-Indipendenza taht il-gvern ta’ Mintoff.
Miraklu li baqa hajj!
III HATE Nationalists…
… of course you so – you’re the fruit if what Mintoff sowed: division and hatred!
and youre a fucked up asshole
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/A_V11/GrazziPerit.jpg
the murdered was victim of a police frame up…..WHAT ABOUT KAREN GRECH ???
[Daphne – Go back to sleep. The chief suspect in Karin Grech’s case is now a Labour councillor.]
My late father use to tell me the story of when Labour “won” an election and he got stuck in traffic while driving back home. Because he didn’t hoot to celebrate a Labour win, he got his car smashed by a group of thugs armed with chains.
I clearly see what you are after in your articles lately. I’ll be honest and add that I was in total dismay of your articles and style towards the death of Mintoff.
Certain expressions are better left unsaid in my opinion. But you exposed a terrible virus in the process: violence fuelled by HATE.
I was appalled to read certain comments posted on your blog. While your articles delivered your opinion with a consequence of very ugly adjectives towards Mintoff, some comments addressed to you expressed violence indicating pay-back time at some point in the near future, not to mention the extreme vulgar words in Maltese.
The fact that politicians from the major parties are praising Mintoff in this majestic manner is disrespectful towards people who suffered emotional and physical losses in that era.
If the Maltese people and the politicians forgot or want to forget this black episode in history than we deserve every single idiot politician we have.
Our politicians are not able to tell it the way it is, let alone tell it the way it should be.
While I commend you on your courage to speak up I urge you to get in politics. At least you tell it the way it is, hopefully you’d tell it the way it should be.
Sa fejn naf jien, Dr.Fenech Adami l-muccu, darba qal li jaf minn qatlu u kellu jressqu…Tghid ghala ma ressqux, tghid dan xi wiehed milli jinqeda mill-koxxa? Dafni Vroom Broom, I think you might get away with murder these days…Why don’t you go and crack open a bottle of champagne as Mintoff is buried?
Wiehed mil-vittmi tal-vjolenza fir-Rabat hu Joe Vella li kien ferut serjament u ghad ghadu sallum bil-bullet go rasu. Dak gara meta il-pulizzija iddecidew li jisparaw bl-adocc fuq in-Nazzjonalisti.
If they were Mintoff thugs, why EFA did not solve the case??? Could it be, that some PN Supporters shoot him?? ehh it could be. EFA didn’t want to be the person who send them to jail. If they were laburisti, zgur li kien jibathom il-habs. Malta zghira, in-nies maghrufa.
Ma dawn in-nies li qedin infakru ma ninsewx lil dawk l-eluf ta’ tfal jitghalmu fil-mohbi fid-djar minhabba il-glida ta l-iskejjel.
Jew it-tghajjir li taqla’ ghax ommok ma tibghatekx skola dakinhar tal-Imnarja.
Kien dak il-mument deciziv li biddilt l-iskola, u dan l-episodju baqa’ trawmatiku ghalija.
Hsibt li hlist u li se nitghallem bla xkiel, imma dak il-baghal ta’ KMB, ghalqilna l-iskola, u kien ikolli nitghallem bil-mohbi.
Is-soddisfazzjon li hassejt x’hin il-marmalja sikkitniha b’rebha elettorali fl-1987, ma ninsih qatt, kemm qbizt, avolja kont ‘kannol bla krema’. Ghalhekk ma ninsih qatt dak iz-zmien, biex meta nkun bil-vot f’idejja nahseb fih u fil-gejjieni ta’ uliedi.
I cringe every time I read what Eddie Fenech Adami said about Mintoff.
It’s the opposite of what Mintoff really did.
And I wholly agree with what Mr. Caruana Galizia wrote. We must never forget that some people lost their lives directly or indirecrly in those terrible days.
Many who suffered injustices at the hands of the Labour administration were never compensated and what’s worse they’ll carry their memories with them to the grave and if history isn’t updated and written as it happened, in a few years time everything will be forgotten and people who don’t learn from the past will relive it in future.
If it wasn’t for Mintoff toppling the Sant administration we would never have joined the EU. And we joined against the written and published blabberings of the current MLP leader who is now lauding Mintoff.
Joining the Europe of ‘Cain’ is the *best* thing that ever happened to Malta and the best thing Mintoff ever did.
The irony of it all.
Eddie was always the person to choose the right words at the right moment.
The Neo-mintoffian kwazi-prim ministru is just as bad as Kim Il Sung clone that has just been left to fester and ferment as worm food six feet under.
Dom used the death of Karen Grech as providential fuel for his propaganda machinery.
Joe Muscat is doing like wise with the death of that miserable double timing bastard who humiliated his successor in 1998.
Puuuu ghal wicckom ja qatta Mintoffjani pxat min ghoxx ommkom. Jien inhobbkom hafna, ….mixwijin u mhallta bin nuhhala bhala ikel tal-qzieqes.
It is now high time that the Partit Nazzjonalista started rendering some sort of respect to its victims of the 70s and 80s instead of muttering nonsensical apologetic platitudes on how great a guy Mintoff was. That is , if it is seriously interested in decreasing the current gao in popularity between the PN and Joey’s Neomintoffian party.
Perhaps it is also time for the PN to stop using victims of violence for their own political propaganda? That indeed is shabby!
Good morning Daphne. On reading the comments on this particular topic (or rather all of them which get bloody addictive) I came across the name of Norman Hamilton of Bla (or rather Blah) Agenda fame.
I had been coming here to Malta intermittently since 1978 and married in 79.
At the time I remember seeing him on some tacky game shows on XandirMalta (for some unknown reason with my memory bank I recall he doled out a crate of Dr. Pepper} and, subsequently, according to my ex RAF friends who were based at Luqa he was employed at BFBS Radio or Rediffusion.
Although he’s not a politician as such and on checking through your index there were very few references to him apart from the occasional possibly dodgy freebie cruises.
What’s his connection with this shabby crew? Sorry to be slightly off topic. It’s just that for somebody that used to broadcast to the British Forces and that possibly, I assume, had British connections, it seems somewhat surreal.
[Daphne – Norman Hamilton hosts a show on the Labour Party’s televison station. He also owns a travel agency which specialises in cruises. But he remains best known for his connections to the Labour Party or, as you put it, “this shabby crew”.]
Thank you for your timely clarification Daphne. Was back in UK sometime back and this Hamilton cropped up. Seems after 35 years this guys name was obnoxious then, but nothing compared to the political flotsam and jetsam now.
Oh, by the way, getting a lot of stick at work because I compared Mintoffs funeral to De Mille’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth”. (complete with the forthcoming trainwreck).
PAROLI FIL VOJT QEDIN TEJDU . ALLA JBIEREK MIN KISSER ID DAR TA FANEK ADAMI HADD MA ARAFHOM ? ,ISSA ILHOM IS SNIN FIL GVERN U GHADU IL HADD MA TRESSAQ IL QORTI. IN NIES TAL LABOUR KIENU JINQABDU FXIBKA LI LANQAS IKUNU JAFU LI INQABDU FIJA . IL BOMBI KIF WAQFU META INBIDEL IL GVERN FI 1987 ? U XI NEJDU FUQ LARMI? LI INSTABU FIL KWARTIERI TAL PN? IL LABURIST SA BICCA KANNA KIEN JASAL SABIEX JIGGIELED . U TIFTAKKRUHOM IL FLIEXKEN MIMLIJIN BLISPIRTU TAL MELH BIEX TWADBUWHOM FUQ IN NIES WAQT XI MEETING TAL PARTIT TAL LABOUR . EDDIE MISSIER ID DEMOKRAZZIJJA JEJDU ,META IL GLIED FIS SEBAJNIJIET BEDA META SAR KAP TAL PARTIT NAZZJONALISTA
Needless to say, I deplore all violence be it physical or verbal. Even if what you say is right, how can you blame Mintoff or Labour for some minister’s driver shooting another man? I mean have you got your head screwed on? Get real. Some of the violence was orchestrated by the PN to create instability. I said ‘some’. And if the evidence was there, why did Fenech Adami and Gonzi do nothing about it? Perhaps the truth was far too close to the PN!
[Daphne – Get a grip, Joseph Carmel. Here we’re talking about a prime minister telling one of his ministers to be careful, because another minister might call in somebody to have him shot. Lovely. You’re really desperate if you’re even trying to justify that kind of situation. Malta under Mintoff was great, you say – meanwhile, I didn’t see you popping back from Australia to actually live here.]