The chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology walked round to Nicky Azzopardi’s left and back, where Azzopardi couldn’t see him, and then punched him on the left side of the head

Published: August 6, 2013 at 10:23am

Jeffrey-the-dork

In response to my request for other witnesses to corroborate what one witness communicated to me via this website last night (see earlier post), this morning I received the following email from another witness to the brawl in Rabat:

This is what truly happened in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The young man who I believe is Nicky Azzopardi approached Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and 2-3 other people just in front of Is-Serkin. After maybe a minute or so Franco Debono, the Law Commissioner, came sprinting frantically towards Azzopardi so much so that they had to hold him back.

The Law Commissioner was yelling “Are you going to record me too?” Amidst a lot of swearing, an old man punched Azzopardi in the face. This is when the brawl shifted towards the parking-lot.

I was walking towards my car at that time and I could see a rather large guy in a suit trying to hit Azzopardi but he was being held back. This is when Pullicino Orlando went around Azzopardi, and standing to the left and back, delivered a punch to the left side of his face. Azzopardi couldn’t see who it was as Pullicino Orlando was behind him when this happened, and he wears glasses. I hope this helps.

Now you must bear in mind that apart from Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s position as chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology, and his medical professional obligations as a dentist, he is 50 years old and the 22-year-old he victimised with the aid of a gang in a brawl, and reportedly punched in this manner, is his children’s age and a friend of theirs.

As for the Law Commissioner, this country got what it deserves. People are so busy creating an alternative reality that enables them to survive life on a claustrophic rock that their minds have turned to puddings. Current mantra: ‘let’s not take life too seriously’.

The Law Commissioner/chief of Constitutional Reform and the chairman for the Malta Council for Science and Technology, ganging up on a 22-year-old who had the temerity to tick the latter off for shouting “F’ghoxx in-Nazzjonalisti” in a public bar, after drinking all night at a club full of people they shouldn’t be mixing with, and then brawling in a parking-lot outside the bar: all together now – U EJJA, SO WHAT, DON’T TAKE LIFE SERIOUSLY.

Unbelievable: those in your 20s, leave now. You really don’t want to end up like my generation, deadening the fear and boredom of existential hell on a rock by dressing up as tarts and sailors at 40 and 50, posting ‘sexy pics hon’ on Facebook and clubbing at Marrakesh while pretending that nothing matters – because if we don’t have an opinion or feel strongly about something, then we don’t feel the obligation to do anything about it, unless we can act safely in a large gang, like all the others gangs we move in, by rabbiting about Malta Taghna Lkoll when it becomes fashionable to do so.

I might be alone in thinking this, but the Law Commissioner and the MCST chairman, brawling in a parking-lot outside a bar just before dawn, ganging up on a 22-year-old kid who ticked one of them off for shouting “F’ghoxx this and that”, after drinking and clubbing until 5am, one of them with a woman not his wife because presumably his wife had the good sense to go home earlier, is shocking.

And that this is accepted as normal, because people are adjusting their minds and their standards to cope with much worse to come, and because many of those people are not averse to doing the same thing themselves and define it as ‘fun’ and ‘not taking life seriously’ is more shocking still.

Grow up, the lot of you – because the rest of us are going to end up with what only you deserve.




70 Comments Comment

  1. Lorry says:

    Shockingly true, Daphne. There’s not much left to be said. What a sad place to live in.

  2. T. Cassar says:

    It hurts even more when our PM dismisses each and every negative event in such a way like saying ‘this is the way forward – get used to it’.

    Whether it happens at tal-pastizzi or anywhere else, a crime is still a crime and should be acted upon accordingly. These are the people who should be leading by example.

  3. S.Sultana. says:

    I know for certain that N. Azzopardi won’t do anything of the sort that they speculated about him. Let’s hope that justice will be done in the end. The utter lies that were said these past two days ’bout this poor kid are unbelievable..

    • Min Jaf says:

      No doubt the police will now press charges against the victim, Nicky Azzopardi, for fomenting public disorder, while the true perpetrators JPO and Franco Debono take shelter under Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s copius bottom, in the good old traditional Mintoffian way.

  4. Jozef says:

    Well said. The Maltese opted for the five-year sabbatical.

    State-sanctioned lotus-eating.

  5. TinaB says:

    You nailed it.

    Sadly the majority are way too stupid to understand it, let alone to take heed.

  6. Ghoxrin Punt says:

    How true, the apathy that our country has been in for the last 5 years, is now rally biting us in the arse.

    Unfortunately, I can also imagine a number of my peers (in age) saying, ‘u ija just because he was out at 5am acting the idiot, who cares, live and let live’.

    However, living at let living is not the order of the day here, because these are the people who are going to come with some fangled new legislation and new constitution that is going to give these sort of rights to individuals – the right to shout obsenities, the right to gang up on people, the right to get away with violence.

    • Jozef says:

      You mean five years of consistent poisoning, distortion of public opinion and manipulation of facts.

      Put in an overdose of our legendary indolence and Labour’s suddenly the thing to have.

      It’s an unworded pact, the real propaganda out there, ‘we’ll leave you alone if you let us to it’. Should work both ways, or so they think.

      The country’s too small for any of this to sustain itself for long. Gives one an idea of the limits on Muscat’s political knowledge.

      He just doesn’t register how democracy and economics go together in 2013 Malta, no wonder he betrays frustrated insecurity in all his words.

  7. Deceduti says:

    Irrespective of what is said, the truth is that the 25 years of relative serenity in Malta are coming to an end.

    Joseph Muscat – amongst the many problems he has – should decide to scrap these two people and he will be politically better off. Or does he have some accounts to settle with them? If it is so, then he’ll be better prepared for a 5 year hell, the way it was for Dr. Gonzi.

    Dr. Gonzi, somehow, controlled it. Dr. Muscat is totally immature to handle this.

    • La Redoute says:

      Who said Joseph Muscat wants to contain bad behaviour? He a mini-Mintoff who shot to power on the back of it.

    • Victor says:

      Don’t be fooled in thinking that Dr. Muscat wants to control any of this. His remarks about any wrongdoing proves this.

      Please don’t tell me that you were fooled by his ‘want to make good’ demeanour during the electoral campaign.

    • mewho says:

      Proof in the pudding can be found in the francodebono.com blog of the 4th August attacking the Times and two if its employees. It then went on to say that what happened in the eighties was a result of provocation and it gave to imply it had the proof.

      Whoever wrote either realised they had the wrong information or is probably gutless, because its been removed (not realizing that what you write on the internet leaves a trace for about six months.

      Quote / unquote

      “The Maltese people have a right to know what happened in the Eighties – who provoked who and who sparked the flames of unrest and civil disobedience. No country deserves to live a lie. The country deserves the truth, a full version not one edited by censorship.”

  8. Alexander Ball says:

    JPO said he needed bodyguards because of threats to his family.

    Did the police apprehend those responsible?

    If not, did they withdraw the threats?

    If not, JPO is taking a big risk swanning around unprotected.

    Or is he not only a c*nt, but also a lying c*nt?

  9. Peter Mercieca says:

    Nicky, I don’t know you at all but I salute your bravery and courage to stand up to these mobsters. A spine in today’s society is a rare thing!

  10. H.P. Baxxter says:

    All right, chaps. What can we do?

    Sending letters to the papers achieves nothing. Sending opinion pieces is even worse – they won’t get published.

    There must be other ways of standing up for a morally upright society.

    [Daphne – Refuse to participate.]

    • Jozef says:

      Exactly,

      even because they can’t manage on their own.

      The PN’s coming up with some very interesting ideas, conserve the state within the party, formalise social patterns and explore commercial methods. Brand.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        The PN has been missing the wood for the trees these twenty years.

        We liberal right-wingers believe that politics is all about working for the common good. So the essential quality of members of society should be goodness. Doing what is right.

        Yet how often can we say of a PN politician: “Here is a good person”?

        How many of them are in politics just for the money? How many of them, after 1987, forgot that Justice was in their motto alongside work and freedom? How many of them strive to improve themselves, to be better men and women?

        “Min hexa mexa, min ma hexiex inhexa” is our national motto and a recipe for disaster.

        Morality isn’t about campaigning against divorce or inserting clauses in the constitution banning abortion forever.

        The common good isn’t the GDP, or even the GDP per head.

        Here we are, fifty years after independence, building statues to a prime minister who was possibly the most evil man ever to rule Malta, for whom the end justified the means, who bent a nation to his will through fear.

        And no one will speak out. Because we started by cutting corners and ended up embracing evil.

      • Jozef says:

        Erm, which is exactly why now’s a perfect opportunity.

        Long term strategy means building a real alternative, and that doesn’t mean an electoral result in five year’s time.

        Labour’s failure to provide productive work will see to it. The problem remains essentially the same.

        If it’s true that ministries have become supermarket employment agencies and Castille has a special desk centralising all manner of queues previously found at minister’s constituencies, it will happen sooner than we think.

        Heard Scicluna or Grech lately?

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        Well, you tell your PN friends then. You were AZAD president, for god’s sake.

    • albona says:

      I disagree mate. Write letters. If they are well-written they will be published.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Oh but I’ve never been asked. Never was a blue-eyed boy.

      [Daphne – No, what I meant was: don’t participate. Just turn your back on it and stand your ground.]

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        You obviously know this as a keen observer of Maltese society – it doesn’t work. No one would notice. When you turn your back on improper behaviour or immoral actions in any Maltese crowd, they’ll just say ‘kemm hu stramb’ at best.

        A Maltese Gandhi would just have been a footnote.

        [Daphne – Better to be called a ‘stramb’ (while being considered normal elsewhere) than to be forced into dealing with freaky behaviour and going along with it.]

      • Francis Saliba MD says:

        “Don’t participate” is a wise counsel for the brave, the upright, the uncorrupted and the incorruptible.

        In the Mintoff-KMB days there were all too few of them. They were heavily outnumbered by inferior, selfish, cowardly opportunists in high positions in society who concluded that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

        They danced hysterically to that foul tune knowing that what they were doing was morally wrong and destructive to society’s underlings who depended on an integrity at the top but which was non-existent.

        We are back there because thousands of unthinking “shifters” were seduced by the lie that this is some “new” labour.

    • Catsrbest says:

      I think refusing to participate is not enough. How about starting to write real Maltese history chronicles/books – starting by a book about the mega fictitious Mintoff. Anyone interested?

      I have been longing to write about the truth – but since I need some help – I do not know where to turn to exactly.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        I am. I could write it. But I have my own views on things which aren’t exactly mainstream, so it wouldn’t be just about Mintoff. It’s bigger than that.

    • Natalie says:

      How’s this for starters? I usually attend the August Moon Ball, this year I boycotted it, and will continue doing so until this president remains in office.

      I will not donate money to L-istrina or Community Chest Fund this year but I’ll donate directly to whichever organisation I think deserves it.

      • fm says:

        hekk prosit
        u iben il president, dak li tant ghajjar lil gonzi fil massmeetings, ha kuntratt tal mepa fi zmien in nazzjonalisti

  11. L-iehor says:

    Aqtghu jieskom. Does anyone really think the police are going to touch Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando? It’s taken less than 5 months for us to lose faith in the police force.

    • La Redoute says:

      The loss was instant. With Labour in charge, you could be sure that this is what things would come to. Unlike Muscat, we don’t need five years of hindsight.

  12. Alf says:

    And after being requested by the Leader of the Opposition to hold an enquiry according to Law, we have the so-called Prime Minister saying that this was just a “battibekk f’hanut tal-pastizzi”.

    Hallina Joseph. What do certain people such as JPO, Franco and John Dalli (and others) know about you that you are so keen on incensing them? The people (including those who swallowed your bait prior to the election) want to know.

  13. Charly says:

    Well done Daphne, ghax int MARA BIL BAJD.

    Open invitation to Jeffrey and Franco to came to Il-pjazza ta Haz- Zebbug and tell us FOXX IN-NAZZJONALISTI.

  14. NGT says:

    It still amuses me that the several former Nationalist voters I know who voted for the Labour party express surprise and shock at what is happening around us at the moment.

    Was this worth the fleeting moment of vindictive joy you felt when the ‘arrogant and corrupt regime’ experienced their humiliating defeat?

    That awful cliche “it’s time for a change” is really biting you (us) in the arse now, isn’t it?

    With regards to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s behavior, I’m not surprised. That’s exactly the sort of sneaky twat he’s proved himself to be time and time again. I wonder if he was badly bullied at De La Salle? Would explain a lot of things.

    • Tracy says:

      Il-bniedem qatt mhu kuntent b’dak li ghandu. Ried bidla ghax haseb li kien ser ikun ahjar. L-istess bhal l-istorja tal-kelb bl-ghadma f’halqu u rifless tieghu fl-ilma.

      Ha jiehu go fih dak li ried il-bidla, ghallinqas dawk li vvutaw PN m’ghandhomx rimors li ghamlu hekk.

  15. Jozef says:

    To the people who saw this, yes they’ll throw mud and spread rumours and yes, you’ll lose half your ‘friends’.

    But nothing beats principle, believe me, those ‘friends’ are just baggage. This lax attitude is Muscat’s sole method to control, friendship isn’t, as he’ll try, indiscriminate.

    There’s only two ways about it, either Muscat’s made to understand we’re the only thing left or he’s put out by his own abuse.

  16. Josette says:

    Cowards, the lot of them. And bullies to boot.

    And the Prime Minister is as much a coward and bully for protecting them. The message he’s sending is clear – “Do whatever you want. I will excuse you and protect you and I will ensure that the police corps does so too”.

    A true disciple to the late unlamented Duminku and his various stooges.

  17. Michael Seychell says:

    I seriously have my doubts whether or not the Police will take any appropriate action against these two despite all the witnesses there might be. Keep in mind that our Prime Minister has already said that this was ‘a storm in a tea cup’, or something similar.

  18. albona says:

    Well, in Malta ‘alabibizmu’ and ‘salvagizmu’ are admired by the youth, and those not so young, as an enviable quality.

    Still, I am trying to be positive about this period. Fenech Adami and co got us into the EU and Gonzi got us into the euro zone which will now make it virtually impossible for this mob to pull us out without so much collateral that it would probably result in so much social unrest that not even this government could survive. There will be a bailout within the next five years and they will cling to power just the same. That will make the next election easy for the PN to win.

    Now we liberals (not in the dumbed-down cynical sense) and democrats just need to remain strong, help each other out and survive the next few years. We need to have resolve and make sure democracy is not too severely undermined by the time 2018 comes round. And PN/AD wake the heck up please!

    • Osservatore says:

      The PN has been on life support ever since the previous election. Since the last one, it is completely comatose. Even with PL doing all their dirty work, there is absolutely no way that they will turn the present majority around in the next five or ten years, unless they grow a pair.

      There is hardly any need to be a political intellectual to figure out that there is so much to capitalise on with all that is happening. Yet, the PN ate failing to make so much as a splash.

      The PN should know much better, and I will keep on criticising them for their inaction. The LP, on the other hand, know nothing better and are delivering pretty much what those who remember the pre 87 days expected of them.

  19. ACD says:

    No police statement on a high profile politically motivated attack. Are we already at the stage where beating up Nationalists in public is not taken seriously by the police? Could you imagine a similar scenario with the President of the Royal Society?

    The fact that the PM refused to strongly condemn this political violence is disgusting and suggestive of his approval.

  20. Corvo Attano says:

    These are just popular diversions from what’s really going on. Just like all the nit-picking on the Nationalists, bless their soul and poor Austin who can’t even retire in peace.

    I’m afraid you’re all on the wrong track. Since Joseph’s been elected, government has halted: all procurement stopped, all contracts shredded, recruitment frozen, tenders frozen (while the few issued are meddled with), Labour minions scouring offices talking of ‘injustices’.

    The uncertainty is over spilling into the economy, freezing sales in most areas. Ask the developers if anything improved with Labour. Ask the car agents if their sales turned up. Ask the grocer if the shopping basket is full.

    Truth is we are all busy bickering about some cheap backstabber like JPO whilst real business is going to the dogs. Someone pointed out on this website that it’s like thieves in broad daylight. It really is.

    We need to stop focusing on JPO and that other turkey and start asking what the PM means by ‘phenomenal mismanagement at Mater Dei Hospital’, costing ‘exorbitant’ sums since the major overheads are salaries and so on. What I dare ask, will be Joseph’s actions to reduce the bill?

    We need to focus on the actions and not the symptoms this government is generating, at times I suspect very wilfully.

  21. charon says:

    How I wish we were stuck in the eighteenth century. I would have accorded Jeffrey and Franco the benefit of selecting the weapon of their choice.

  22. martin borg says:

    Didn’t the commissioner of police state that charges would be issued on Monday, when all charges related to incidents during the weekend are issued. It’s Tuesday and we are still waiting with bated breath.

    • w says:

      Have not the powers that be already been directed by the highest power that this was a mere ‘battibekk f’hanut tal-pastizzi’. Therefore ensure that this incident is swept under the carpet.

  23. verita says:

    Still waiting for the police report about the ‘ YOU KNOW WHO I AM ‘ incident at the concert . The commissioner promised us one in 3 days . Never came . So give up hope of any police action re the latest incident

  24. chair says:

    In my opinion the police are to blame.

    Had they delivered Jeffrey’s pastizzi straight to his home, none of this would have occurred.

  25. TinaB says:

    This is what Dave Portelli and Daniel Calamatta, two of Jeffrey’s facebook friends, had to say in a reply to two of his rants on facebook:

    “Jeffrey this was all planned by the PN everyone is fully aware about it. It will eventually backfire simultaneously like many other issues. Just be patient and by time the public will be given the necessarily answers.”

    “Jien nistaqsi, u jekk dan il-kumment qed tarah is-sinjura Caruana Galizia forsi tista tirrispondini fuq il-blogg taghha: jekk din ma kenitx kollha xi set up kontra JPO ghalxiex persuna kellha ghalfejn toqghod tiehu r-ritratti ghand is-serkin fil-5 ta’ filghodu? meta mmur nixtri l-pastizzi jien ma noqghodx niehu r-ritratti zgur. x’inhi r-raguni li ttiehdu dawk ir-ritratti? forsi dawk li haduhom kellhom mobile gdid kienu qed jippruvawh? … forsi xi hadd iwegibni, min jaf forsi tohrog stqarrija mill-ufficju nformazzjoni PN, hehe.”

    According to them, it was all a set up and that the PN and Daphne have supernatural powers to know when the chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology is going to get drunk and then go to ‘is-Serkin’ accompanied by his wife’s lady friend to buy half a dozen pastizzi tal-haxu, God Bless.

    Tal-biki u thezziz tas-snien.

    • Josette says:

      Paranoia appears to be catching.

      By the way, when someone in the position of JPO and FD is spotted drunk at is-Serkin in the early hours of the morning, there is a huge chance that someone will take their photo. This is not a place where you can get lost in the crowd and their behaviour did not befit their position.

      And when there is an incident like the one which took place, there is an even greater chance that said photos would be sent to a blogger who would not be afraid to publish them. No conspiracy necessary. But discretion by JPO, FD and their friends – that would be necessary and desirable.

  26. mark says:

    Pullicino Orlando u Debono ghamlu hekk mhux ghax sabu naqra ta’guvnot kwiet….hasra illi ghadda naqra taz-zmien u m’ghadniex nitla ghal pastizzi u kafe, ha naraw kemm kienu jghajjdu ‘F’ghoxx in Nazzjonalisti’.

  27. H.P. Baxxter says:

    U ejja, lighten up, don’t take life so seriously lolz.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23584431

  28. zunzana says:

    Daphne, I do not agree with you that the young ones should leave the island. They are the ones who have to stand up to this regime and give our dear Malta the government that it deserves.

    We do not want to be left with a MCAST mob screaming “Taghna l-lkoll”.

    We need more youths with guts like Mr.Azzopardi who are not afraid to stand up to these goons.

  29. Rumplestiltskin says:

    The unbecoming behaviour of the Chairman of the MCST and the Law Commissioner is disgraceful in itself. Playing it down as a mere ‘battibek’ by the Prime Minister debases us all.

  30. carlos says:

    We were warned several times but the electorate persisted in wanting a change. We got it. Back to the good old times.

  31. Foggy says:

    As a mere foreigner I don’t understand the word F’ghoxx. Can anyone please enlighten me?

    • Joe Fenech says:

      F’ghoxx (literally ‘in the vagina’) is a contraction of a phrase meaning ‘go and f### your mum’. It’s very strong stuff.

  32. There is one defence against such behaviour in a truly democratic country.

    A sense of duty and justice from those whose responsibility it is to ensure that law and order prevail.

    The example should come from the top, and in this respect, the comments by the prime minister on this and other “irregularities” are far from encouraging.

    Il-huta minn rasha tinten.

    Joseph Muscat must decide now, before it is too late, what sort of a personal reputation he is going to leave behind

    • Kevin says:

      What does Muscat care? He’s shown us what he is truly after.

      He wants to be a Labour hero. Muscat aims to be the second Mintoff and no amount of mistakes will make him look otherwise.

      The susceptibility to cult worship is inherent to being a Labourite. Muscat knows it and plays on it.

      • I am afraid that, most probably, you are right. His current public tweeting with a ship’s captain on such an important issue as people saved at sea, has nothing of the dignity of a prime minister .

        But I do not give up, and hope that everyone has enough self-respect to behave in a manner commensurate with his/her responsibilities.

  33. Gahan says:

    Look, I have an idea how to show Muscat that he cannot take us for a ride.

    Simple: do not separate rubbish until the Marsascala Family Park is re-opened. Start filling the trash bags with everything, plastic, wood, paper, glass, scraps of food, rags, expanded polystyrene…everything. Just don’t separate your waste.

    Then we’ll see how long it will take to fix that digestor at the Sant Antnin plant, Herr Flick.

    This is a pacific way of protesting, with the trash bags, NO SEPARATION OF WASTE.

    • curious says:

      Ok, I will do it.

      Meanwhile, why is the park fully lit at night? It is not being used. Lighting should be kept at a minimum.

  34. Andrew says:

    And yet we have a PM who on twitter, retweets the following post by Glen Bedingfiled to try make a mockery of the situation:

    “Inkjesta fuq pastizz – its not a new novel by Alfred Sant but the latest request by Simon Busuttil”

    A 22 year old was assaulted and our PM cracks a joke about it. If you don’t believe this, please visit his Twitter page and scroll down to the 4th August. If you provide an email address I could send you a screen shot.

    [Daphne – http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/08/unbelievable-the-men-the-prime-minister-chose-as-mcst-chairman-and-law-commissioner-are-involved-in-a-drunken-5am-brawl-and-the-pm-tweets-a-wisecrack-about-an-inkjesta-fuq-pastizz/ ]

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