John Dalli: the king of paranoiac media manipulation, half-truths, false victimhood and savage self-obsession
A couple of crooks shake hands on a deal
John Dalli, as though he were not starring on the front pages of The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and some of the European press this week again, has released a statement today attempting to persuade us that he did not stay away from Malta to escape justice.
“I returned to Malta on 6th April when Rizzo was still Commissioner of Police and had ample opportunity to take the steps he felt he had to take,” Dalli’s statement said.
Oh my, how very disingenuous. Rizzo had ‘ample opportunity’, did he. Dalli returned to Malta on 6 April, John Rizzo was removed on 11 April, and Peter Paul Zammit was formally appointed instead of him on 12 April, having been notified well ahead of that because, of course, his agreement was essential.
Rizzo, too, would have known before 11 April that he was to be removed.
The rush to get him out and to have Zammit installed instead was so great that Zammit wasn’t even a member of the police force when he was made its commissioner. He was actually reinstated in the force AFTER being made commissioner.
“It is uncertain whether this false statement by Busuttil is due to superficiality or malice,” Dalli said in his media release.
False statement? Superficiality? Malice?
All of those accusations, unfortunately, apply to Dalli himself. He did not return to Malta the day Zammit was made commissioner, no. He returned to Malta five days before Rizzo was removed and six days before Zammit was formally appointed.
He returned because he knew for a fact that Rizzo was being forcibly removed that week, and he would have known because his friend the prime minister would have told him. That would be his friend Muscat who was the first person he called when leaving Barroso’s office after being given 30 minutes to clear his desk; his friend the prime minister who has put him in charge of Mater Dei Hospital and healthcare services, telling us that he is doing it for free.
“When my medical certificate expired, I informed the police that I would be returning in a few days,” Dalli said in his statement. English is SUCH a wonderful language. It gives so much away that Maltese, a more simple language, does not. Our choice of words is laden with meaning, giving away how we really think through our choice of nouns and verbs.
A man claiming to be unable to return to Malta because he was ill does not speak of ‘when my medical certificate EXPIRED’. Medical certificates do not expire. You are either too ill to travel or you are not. If you are still ill, your doctor will certify the fact.
Dalli’s choice of verb and the reason he gives for returning are a dead give-away of what he was really doing: staying away as long as he could, until Labour was safely installed and the new Commissioner of Police sorted out, stretching his medical certificates to make it possible.
A man who was genuinely ill (or smarter) would have said, “When I was finally well enough to travel” and not “when my medical certificate expired”.
Such scum. And the irony is that those who thought they were voting the Dalli problem out actually voted it back in big-time.
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The other side of this story is that Dalli was being persecuted over a crime he did not commit and he had every right to escape his persecutors.
There are other sides to many other stories concerning Dalli, but in this particular case Daphne’s conspiracy theory is politically biased and based on the supposition that there was no attempt at setting up Dalli and that Zammit acted with his blessing.
Yet all evidence points to an attempt by the tobacco company to entrap him. Ask the anti-tobacco Green MEPs and they’ll tell why Dalli became their hero by the end of his short-lived tenure.
Shouldn’t it be up to the courts to decide whether there is enough evidence beyond reasonable doubt to convict John Dalli?
It is up to the Commissioner of Police to preempt the successive decisions of the magistrate in the compilation proceedings who declares that there is prima facie evidence against the person being investigated, the Attorney General when he draws up the bill of indictment and eventually, the court itself or the jury which decide whether a person is guilty or not.
It certainly should not be up to journalists, blog-writers and commentators to decide whether a person is guilty or not. The issue is rather whether a person should have been arraigned or not and it does not reflect well on the respect for the rule of law that a person has been left off the hook after a change in government which brought about a change in the police officials investigating him.
It is also bodes very badly that the Commissioner of Police himself acknowledged that there was a difference of opinion between him and Inspector Angelo Gafa, one of the most intelligent and respected officers in the corps, on whether arraignment should have taken place.
The Commissioner should have let the courts decide the issue and the fact that he did not points to factors extraneous to the objective merits of the case.
Yes, Sir Arturo, it should be up to the courts to decide. But there first needs to be enough evidence for the police to press charges. In this case, the evidence suggests Silvio Zammit acted on his own device after being approached by the tobacco lobbyists (whose SOLE aim was to entrap Dalli).
You are all a naive lot, but do carry on as it has now become so amusing.
I couldn’t give a monkey’s chuff about Maltese politics. All I know is that the day after OLAF grilled Zammit, there was a 15-minute telephone conversation between him and Dalli, during which Dalli wants us to believe they didn’t once mention the interrogation Zammit had the day before.
Of course you, like many other Maltese, believe every word Dalli says. Good luck.
The only plausible alternative to Dalli lying about a fake affliction is that he does have some real socio-psychological problems (apart from being a brass-necked compulsive liar). This would then imply that that we have a person suffering from some psychiatric condition or other who has been entrusted with the Mater Dei Hospital reforms.
A very scary proposition indeed.
Silvio Zammit should be offered a Presidential pardon to speak up about this case.
Excellent analysis:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-09-29/opinions/the-prime-minister-is-dallis-hostage-not-the-other-way-round-2746843147/
If I can take the liberty to summarise this article, John Dalli has that metaphorical brown envelope about Joseph Muscat.
It makes Dalli to Muscat what Lorry Sant was to Mintoff. Lorry Sant could then do whatever he liked.
He definitely is lying scum but our PM is 100 times worse because he had to give his approval for all this to happen.
Scum is too kind a description. This country has been taken over by buffoons and liars.
Simple: If the PN was re-elected Dalli is behind bars.
[Daphne – Governments do not have the power to put people behind bars. Courts of law do that.]
In your dreams.
Just to nudge everyone’s memory.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2010-10-17/news/ellul-grech-requests-investigation-into-dallis-1999-accusations-281845/
An open letter to Prime Minister Dr Lawrence Gonzi
http://l-g-pm.blogspot.co.uk/
Dalli and Muscat. Honour among crooks.
That now famous phone call Brussels / Mile End at 1700 hours immediately after Dallis’s resignation speaks volumes.