Law Commissioner Franco Debono and Asst Police Commissioner Pierre Calleja: their response to my questions this morning

Before uploading the story in my previous post, I rang both Franco Debono and Pierre Calleja for their comments. Their responses are news stories in themselves, so I am reporting them separately.

I rang Pierre Calleja at 8am and he answered immediately (he doesn’t have my number logged into his phone). He was friendly when I identified myself: “Ghidli, Mrs Caruana Galizia.”

I said to him that I have reliable information he spent a day out on a yacht belonging to a businessman, along with the Law Commissioner. His tone and attitude shifted immediately, becoming hostile and defensive. He began to address me sarcastically as “Mrs Daphne Caruana Galizia” and told me that it was none of my business.

I interjected to explain that I had done my duty as a journalist and rung him for his comments and to double-check the information (even though I didn’t really need to do so, given that my source is cast-iron). So would he please now do his duty as a senior public officer and give me a simple Yes or No, if he did not wish to comment otherwise: “Did you or did you not spend the day out on a boat as the guest of a prominent businessman, in the company of the Law Commissioner?”

His response: “M’ghandiex ghalfejn nghidlek. M’ghandiex l-obbligu li nghidlek, Mrs Daphne Caruana Galizia. Dak affari tieghi.”

I tried one more time, reminding him that he is Assistant Police Commissioner, and if he is accepting invitations and hospitality from certain business people, more so along with the Law Commissioner, then this is a public matter, not a private one.

“M’ghandiex id-dover li nghidlek.”

Next, I rang Franco Debono. He has my number logged into his phone because he used to ring me and rant on every time I wrote about him. So he didn’t answer. A woman who said she works with him answered instead. She didn’t give me her name but she was very polite and suggested that I ring later, telling me that Debono was not available.

I knew he was only avoiding me, because he never lets go of his phone and there was no way on earth he would let a colleague take custody of it, so I assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that he was standing right next to her.

Knowing rather well how his mind functions, I said that I would like to leave a message, and that the message was a journalistic question, so would she be kind enough to take it down?

Really politely, she did so, and even read it back to me (she would know even better than I do how his mind functions, so this would have been done for his benefit, not mine).

“Did Debono spend the day on a yacht owned by a businessman, along with Assistant Police Commissioner Pierre Calleja?”

Literally within seconds, my phone rang, flashing up the Law Commissioner’s name.

“Hello, min inti?” he said disingenuously.

“Daphne Caruana Galizia, Franco. Ghal li jista jkun ircevejt il-messagg? Xtaqt insaqsik jekk veru mort fuq yacht ta’ negozjant mal-Assistent Kummissarju Pierre Calleja.”

Again, major hostility and defensiveness.

“U allura? Imbilli. B’daqshekk ghamilt xi haga hazina? Mhu affari ta’ hadd. Mela jien lanqas biss nista’ mmur…”

I reminded him that he is the Law Commissioner (and chief of Constitutional Reform) and not ‘Franco Debono’, and said goodbye.

A few minutes later, my phone rang again. The Law Commissioner and chief of Constitutional Reform, this time with a conciliatory tone: “Ha nghidlek, ghax dak il-hin sibtni f’mument daqxejn…”.

I thought it best not to remind him that it was he who rang me and not the other way round.

“Mhux vera li jien kont fuq dghajsa ma’ Pierre Calleja.”

I asked him why, in that case, his original response to my very specific question was a defensive “so what” and that it’s none of my business. I’ve been in this trade long enough to know for a fact that when people are faced with untrue information about themselves their reaction is a startled “X’inhi?” or similar.

I also know that the Law Commissioner and Chief of Constitutional Reform has a criminal defence lawyer’s use of words, so I turned the tables and cross-examined him. This was in Maltese, but many of my readers don’t speak the language, so I’ll translate.

“You say you were not on a boat with Pierre Calleja. But was Pierre Calleja there?”

“Yes, he was one of the party. There were about 40 people there.”

“Forty people on a boat, really? And Pierre Calleja was there but he was not actually on the boat?”

“I was not on a boat” – he repeatedly used the word dghajsa, not jott, presumably so that he can claim that he never told me he was not on a yacht – “I was on a dinghy. Pierre Calleja was on another dinghy. There were about 40 people on dinghies.”

I felt like saying: “How fascinating. Were they Miracle dinghies or rubber dinghies? How jolly.”

Instead I said: “People don’t spend an entire day in the July sun on a dinghy, nor do parties of 40 people go out on a flotilla of dinghies.”

He freaked, became aggressive, and the conversation took an ugly turn. I could hear his tone and speech pattern escalating to those so familiar to us from his television appearances and hysteria in parliament, so I disengaged from that and wrested the exchange back to the original subject.

“No, it’s not your business if you accept invitations like that. You are the Law Commissioner. You have to be careful about what invitations you accept. Certain people will not offer you hospitality ghal helu wiccek or because they enjoy your company, but because they see you as useful.”

Things went crazy again. I am not going to translate because the effect is lost.

“Ha nghidlek – jekk inti mdorrija bin-nies juzawk mhux jigifieri li se jaghmlu l-istess mieghi. Ha nghidlek, jien jistiednuni ghax ghandom rispett u jekk irrid naccetta invit minn xi hadd li ghandi rispett lejh mhux affari tieghek, OK.” This was followed by an aggressive litany, the effect of which was heightened by his uneducated accent, that I won’t repeat because it involves several third parties who really shouldn’t be brought into the equation.

Bear in mind that this is the Law Commissioner and Chief of Constitutional Reform.

There was no way I was going to risk further verbal assault by saying that people would pay to avoid his company, not actively choose to spend a day trapped on a boat with him, which means that anyone who plans and executes this does so as a bridge-building exercise.

Instead, while he was ranting and raving about how well respected he is, how people elected him to parliament because they admire him, and how nobody uses him, I said that if he thinks he was made Law Commmissioner because he is well respected and nobody uses him, he is completely deluded. And I ended the conversation.

I then had to sit down for five minutes, getting used to the Through The Looking-Glass scenario. This man is the prime minister’s choice for Law Commissioner and Chief of Constitutional Reform. And Malta has to suck it up.