John Dalli is in the care of a psychiatrist. And then the newspapers and the Labour Party treated his behaviour as normal.

Published: March 27, 2013 at 9:45am

john-dalli

When I wrote, repeatedly, that John Dalli’s behaviour over the last couple of years, with his obsessive ranting on Super One, his poor judgement calls, his disturbed speech and thought patterns, and his paranoid and illogical accusations of phone-tapping and secret organisations hacking into his email, all indicated that he was in the grip of mental illness, people jumped down my throat.

Attakk fahxi u moqziez fuq il-persuna tal-ex ministru Nazzjonalist John Dalli.

That John Dalli is mentally ill wasn’t my point. Lots of people suffer from mental illnesses of various kinds and to different degrees. It is not their fault (unless they have made the sort of choices which drove them into it, but even so) and what they need is acknowledgement of the fact of their illness and the appropriate treatment.

THAT was my point.

I was appalled that the Labour Party could take somebody so obviously in the grip of an obsessive paranoid disorder, whose rigid and unchanging facial expression alone indicated a very deep problem almost certainly associated with serious depression, and parade him about on Super One television, with ‘interviewers’ actually GOADING him into the obsessive repetition of thoughts and fixations about his perceived enemies which is the hallmark of some forms of mental illness.

It made me sick. The Labour Party has done that with other individuals too, parading them on television where they repeat, with that rigid speech pattern, the same set of three or four obsessive thoughts. It has even given state appointments to two of them.

But for now we are talking about John Dalli, because it has finally been revealed in The Times today that he is indeed seeing a psychiatrist at last. I’m glad to hear that, because his displays over the course of the last year had become increasingly disturbed and disturbing.

There is, however, one thing I find completely unacceptable. The fact that he is seeing a psychiatrist who says that he ‘cannot face ‘psycho-social’ exposure should not be used as an excuse to evade justice in Malta.

There are not many people who can face the ‘public rape’ of going through this kind of thing, and they are all hardened criminals. Anybody else goes through massive trauma at that level of ‘psycho-social’ exposure but still he or she has to endure it.

The Times reports today:

Dalli cannot face ‘psycho-social exposure’

Medical certificates enabling former European Commissioner John Dalli to postpone meeting Maltese investigators state that he cannot travel or face “psycho-social exposure”.

They say the “patient is not able to fly or travel long distances because of a medical problem”. He is in the “psycho-social” care of Dr Michael Scholten, whose clinic is in Mettlach, Germany.

However, Mr Dalli last week gave a statement to Belgian judicial police, in testimony that lasted three-and-a-half hours. He gave Belgian police a recorded conversation between Green MEP José Bové and Swedish Match official Johann Gabrielsson, in which the latter said OLAF officials as well as the Maltese police “suggested” he stick to a version of events that had been discredited in investigations. The Maltese police denied any such suggestion.

A day later, he failed to appear for libel proceedings he initiated in Malta against The Times. His lawyer said he would be filing a medical certificate.




17 Comments Comment

  1. Weird no ? says:

    Pity he cannot come to take a prize directorship somewhere from Malta Taghna Lkoll for being a switcher.

  2. Min Jaf says:

    Sic transit gloria mundi, Guz..

  3. Tim Ripard says:

    Something wrong with this sentence: Anybody else goes through massive trauma at that level of ‘psycho-social’ exposure but still they have to endure it.

    [Daphne – Changed from third person plural to third person singular.]

  4. Dorothy says:

    I wonder if he travelled Malta on the 9th March, to vote.
    Can somebody check?

  5. Il-Haxu says:

    Pity he cannot travel to Tripoli to look after the assets he left behind.

  6. Min Jaf says:

    Min ghalih kien ser jibla d-dinja, u d-dinja belghat lilu.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Mhux veru. Infakkrek li
      a) ghadu jgawdi immunità politika u legali, u ghadu ma tressaqx quddiem il-gustizzja,
      b) ghadu kunsidrat bhala VIP intokkabbli u ghadu jiddikjara li huwa Kummissarju (ara kull profile pubbliku tieghu)
      c) ghandu flus iktar milli int u jien qatt nistghu nimmaginaw li jkollna fl-univers kollu
      d) il-hafna business concerns tieghu ghadhom intatti.

      Inblajna jien u int, Min Jaf. Two weights, two measures. Minn dejjem hekk kienet din l-imnejka Malta.

  7. Toni says:

    Brussels to Mettlach is 140 miles as the crow flies. Who goes to who?

  8. Natalie says:

    Having a psychiatric illness does not impede the individual from flying, unless the illness is aeroplane phobia or something related.

    Another interesting issue is, how did Dalli see his psychiatrist from Brussels, when the article clearly states that the psychiatrist has a clinic in Germany? Did he have to take a plane?

  9. Helen says:

    He should pass on Dr Sholten’s card to Franco Debono.

  10. pazzo says:

    ‘There is no JUSTICE, in or out of courts’.Clarence Darrow

  11. Artemis says:

    “psycho-social’ exposure” my arse! That’s psycho-babble for “shit scared”.

    Dalli has availed himself of the justice system in Malta for many years for his own ends.

    To me that means he has put his faith in it. He should now put his faith in it again and come back and face the music.

    If he is as innocent as he claims then he has nothing to fear. However, I think he is using this medical condition, if one can call it that, as an excuse to avoid at all costs being exposed as the fraud he is.

    He has spent many years in Malta as a politician taking all the flak for all the scandals he has allegedly been involved in, which did not seem to bother him. Why is it bothering him now?

    Is it because he knows he is guilty?

    Personally I feel he is taking the piss out of Malta and Brussels with this excuse. He is insulting our intelligence. He’s been doing that for years anyway.

  12. Joseph Ellul-Grech says:

    It is evident that John Dalli is being handled with velvet gloves. When he falsely accused me I was treated totally different despite the fact that I had to have hospital treatment while in police custody.

    His condition is not serious. It is an excuse to avoid prosecution. It would be interesting for all of us if Dalli explains why he and his daughters visited the Bahamas several times in 2012. He should also explain what sort of business he was conducting with his friend Gaddafi.

    John Dalli a person who cannot be trusted.

  13. Chiaroscuro says:

    “psycho-social exposure”.

    It seems like something invented by Dottor Emy Bezzina.

  14. Gahan says:

    Jista’ jinzel jew jitnizzel overland b’hafan waqfiet sa Reggio Calabria jaqsam ghal Sqallija u jigi jew igibuh bil-katamaran, jew bl-Air Malta minn Catania.

  15. Chris says:

    “obsessive paranoid disorder”

    Playing doctor now?

    [Daphne – The symptoms are obvious, Chris. There’s no need to ‘play doctor’. If you think that’s normal behaviour, then question yourself.]

  16. Gahan says:

    He used to say that he was a prisoner in Brussels, but he seems to like it there.

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