Another Dalli brother behind bars
That’s interesting. The police must have some kind of perverted sense of humour, because they held John Dalli (and Silvio Zammit) for questioning on the very day that his successor faced MEP questions in Brussels.
They didn’t give a press conference about it, either. We first got to hear about it through rumours spreading through the law courts this morning that the two were about to be picked up by the police.
In reality, they had been picked up already, and have been held in a cell since last night.
Perhaps now a disembodied voice will make itself heard to HuBastjan, through the grille on the cell door at the Floriana HQ, as it did with Bastjan himself at Corradino.
Nice friend and Father Confessor you’ve got there, Jeffrey. Oink oink.
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Why is a person kept overnight at the police headquarters? For further questioning? (excuse my ignorance but the fact that Silvio Zammit was let go after three hours while Dalli is still there leaves little to the imagination).
[Daphne – You can be held without release, for questioning, for 48 hours. After that, the police must let you go even if they haven’t yet got what they want and need. When you have been let go, you cannot be re-arrested and held for another 48 hours, a trick that the Labour government of the 1980s loved to practice.]
I think that typical Mintoffian trick has been declared illegal by the Courts (Judge Zammit McKeon, if I remember).
Much much earlier than that. It was Guido de Marco who masterminded the case, and obtained from Magistrate Filletti (if my memory still serves me well) the declaration that that trick was illegal.
Min Weber: Absolutely correct.
Intriguing how The Times today calculates length of time. John Dalli was summoned to Police HQ on Monday at 9.00am and left on Tuesday at 6.30pm; that makes it 33 and half hours by my book while Times states “John Dalli spent nearly 24 hours at Police HQ…”. Go figure !
This is getting to be like a Danger Man episode from the early 1960s.
That JPO character sure hangs around with a sleazy bunch of ruffians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp5n9TxW9bc
What a pity that one of Malta’s top politicians should end up in the police lockup.
What is more disgraceful is that some fellow Maltese should sound happy about this.
I hope that when all this ends and hopefully, he will be proved innocent, the same persons will be brave enough to ask for his pardon.
“What a pity that one of Malta’s top politicians should end up in the police lockup.
What is more disgraceful is that some fellow Maltese should sound happy about this.”
He WAS repeat WAS one of Malta’s top politicians. He sank in most decent people’s esteem once he started calling himself a prisoner in Brussels.
If the charges will be proven, he will become one of Malta’s most corrupt politicians, relegating Patrick Holland and Lorry Sant to amateur status. Presumably the police have enough to warrant their sleepover invitation.
To your second part. As a Maltese, I am more than happy at this. By his actions, Dalli has cast a shadow not only on himself, but on all Maltese. Yes folks, people outside the Maltese shores believe that this is how business is conducted in Malta. So sod off Silvio, and find some other damsel in distress to champion. Dalli’s white dress is looking greyer and shabbier by the minute.
From Prisoner in Brussels to Prisoner in … ?
It is awfully hard to top Lorry Sant on the corruption index scale.
I looked up the word “corruption” in the latest edition of Webster’s Dictionary and it had a picture of Lorry Sant beside the word.
It has been like that for decades now.
Silvio’s thinking is a bit twisted.
If Dalli is ‘proved innocent’ why should anyone ‘ask for a pardon’?
re. corruption ‘Patrick Holland and Lorry Sant to amateur status’ not quite, they were pioneers so to speak, trail-blazers in an unexplored virgin territory that was not virgin when they left it for sure.
Let’s just say EU membership opened many opportunities.
Silvio, your reasoning defies logic. You really exasperate me.
At times you express sound thoughts, then, like bolts out of the blue, you utter absurdities.
Define ‘top politician’.
No one asked for Dalli’s pardon after he had to resign his ministerial post in Gonzi’s government on accusations that later proved to be trumped up.
So after a two-and-a-half years stint in a Brussels prison it has now come to 48 hours in a bed and breakfast in Floriana.
You’re confusing “top” with “successful”, Silvio. Unless you equate money-grubbing with quality.
When I saw the piggy photo, I thought Pullicino Orlando was going to say something about Mistra.
He will have lots to say (and do) once Joseph becomes PM.
Did Joseph not say that once he becomes PM he will ‘authorize projects which may be controversial, in the interest of creating jobs’?
JPO will become (politically) unemployed and will try to cash in some IOUs signed by Joseph.
What is so special about being a politician and why cannot one be held in the police lockup for I am sure a good enough reason.
The days when people were held for 48 hours in a police cell by Anglu Farrugia for political reasons are over.
Not so, Edgar. I was accosted by CID in the middle of the night, under the Sant government, interrogated by the then Commisisoner Grech for the remainder of the night (of course, no lawyer present or allowed), thrown in the Floriana lockup, arraigned, then delivered to Kordin (strip searched) for three weeks, before being acquitted.
Johnny will not enjoy Floriana, filthy, noisy and didn’t even get a coffee.
Will be interested to see if he gets Kordin also. Possibly they will consider him a flight suspect too. Probably has a Libyan passport in his back pocket.
I think Commissioner Grech came much, much later.
[Daphne – No. He was the commissioner in 1996. Definitely.]
Right; forgot all about the 22 month blip on radar between 1996 – 1998.
That’s a big problem, Lestrade.
So many people have forgotten the 1996-1998 ‘blip’. And we’re destined to go through it again. Let’s hope it doesn’t last much longer.
RJC: Well after going through the Mintoff/KMB years from 1971 to 1987 and the Sant 22 months, my mantra is “Never forgive, never forget “. This morning’s lapsus was due to lack of caffeine.
Silvio, any person ending up at the Police HQ for questioning is neither a happy nor an unhappy event, following as in this case, a report from an anti-fraud body such as OLAF.
I also hope, though with a difference, that if he is innocent, he is consequently proved to be so.
That would explain the “oinks” doing the rounds on Facebook statuses today.
Dalle stelle alle stalle (almost literally)
Zammit behind bars – now he knows what circus animals go through.
Was he really kept overnight in a cell? If it was a Police HQ sleepover, the investigators are really into something.
[Daphne – Yes, he was. The newspaper reports saw he was there since last night.]
Look at how Maltatoday report this:
“MaltaToday is informed that John Dalli spent the night between Monday and Tuesday inside the Commissioner of Police’s office, because he chose to have interrogation continue uninterrupted.”
http://maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/John-Dalli-questioned-by-police-at-Floriana-headquarters-20121113
I also read that mr. John Dalli was in the Police Commissioner’s office throughout the night because he wanted his interrogation to continue without interruption. I have alse read that Mr. Dalli said that he was well treated and seemed in “high spirits “.
Daphne, I do not want to spoil your evening , but saviour balzan on Manuel Micallef’s Super One TV show, right now, is a disgrace.
He is clearly disgusted with today’s grilling. The questions put forward by the MEPs were not good enough.
Very unclear in his reasoning. I might be wrong, but he almost said that he is an ‘Eurosceptic’ .
Luciano Busuttil’s silent presence on this programme, after having praised Tonio Borg on PBS and NET TV, is an enigma.
I have just read this on the New York Times Review of Books:
What can be worse than to sell your soul and find it not valuable enough to get anything for it? His friends can only hope he is too morally obtuse to realize that crushing truth. Losing elections is one thing. But the greater loss, the real loss, is the loss of honor.
This is how you enticed the UK public around 1980 …
http://tinypic.com/r/11v4kk5/6
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/John-Dalli-questioned-by-police-at-Floriana-headquarters-20121113
“MaltaToday is informed that John Dalli spent the night between Monday and Tuesday inside the Commissioner of Police’s office, because he chose to have interrogation continue uninterrupted.”
“At 11am, Dalli was about to leave the Floriana depot, but was asked by his interrogators not to leave for questioning to resume.”
Who runs the show at Police HQ?
This is a “hawwadni ha nifmhek” report. Was he at Police HQ out of his free will or was he asked to go ‘inside’ again by police before leaving?
Yesterday was an eventful day:
The Prime Minister was in Brussels working to keep funds coming from the EU. (Victim of his own success?)
Dr Tonio Borg was being heard (grilled) before being approved EU Commissioner.
Two defrocked priests were sent to prison on child abuse, by the court of appeal.
And ex-Commissioner Dalli was being interrogated at Police Headquarters on trade of influence charges.
Sic transit gloria mundi.