Funny how the real news falls into a black hole in Malta

Published: January 3, 2014 at 7:36pm

Two days before Christmas, Times of Malta reported:

Police investigations have established that a man found dead in the sea in Sa Maison in Marsamxett Harbour yesterday had been in the water for some eight hours.

The body, identified as being that of a man from Montenegro aged in his mid 30s, was bound with electricity cables around various parts of his body including his hands and feet. There were no external signs of violence.

Yes…and?

So some gangsters tie up a Montenegrin living in Malta, then throw him into the harbour to sink and drown. And the newspapers report this in a dry, matter-of-fact way as though it is just any old corpse found drifting along, possibly even that of a large fish.

What about the implications of the manner of his murder? What about the fact that we had a spate of gangland murders over the last year and a half, and there is one drug-dealer/women-trafficker in his 20s whose body has still not been found after he went missing, presumed dead, in roughly the same period?

These murders are not necessarily connected, probably not at all, but that actually makes the situation worse. These are a couple of islands with a population of less than half a million. What exactly is going on beneath the surface? These grisly murders are what bob to the surface as indicators of what is going on in the murky waters beneath.




22 Comments Comment

  1. La Redoute says:

    The trussed-up corpse of a young woman from the former Soviet bloc had been fished out of the sea in Sliema, near the ‘chalet’ at Ghar id-Dud, a few years ago. That story, too, had been dropped immediately after the initial news report.

  2. La Redoute says:

    “No external signs of violence”. As if tying somebody up and throwing them into the sea to drown isn’t one of the greatest acts of violence possible.

    • Last Post says:

      My thoughts exactly when I first heard the police report on the TV news. I couldn’t believe my ears that the police made such a stupid statement. It sounded like it was a mystery death which they didn’t want to bother us (and themselves) with.

  3. Jozef says:

    “No external signs of violence.” No, they just tied him up and threw him into the sea to drown.

  4. ciccio says:

    Ask Marlene Farrugia…

  5. Delta says:

    Shame it wasn’t a Montenegrin dog. It might have even got itself a monument.

  6. Neil says:

    Must have been a suicide then, hence the subdued reportage. Tied himself up with electrical cables, jumped in, case closed.

  7. watchful eye says:

    Ask the flamingo. Still awaiting forensic results!

  8. Neil says:

    Now give them a cat strung up in Mosta, and that’s just shocking beyond belief. Not that it’s not horrible but, come on. A bit of perspective.

  9. Albert Floyd says:

    “There were no external signs of violence”. Most likely they tied him up, carried him and threw him in the sea while he was sleeping or already dead.

    [Daphne – 1. You can’t tie anyone up while they’re sleeping. People wake at first touch, let alone when they’re being trussed up. It’s only possible when they’re unconscious, but then you’d find traces of whatever it was in their blood. 2. There is no point in tying the hands and feet of a dead man. You tie the hands and feet of a live man so that he drowns. This was a binding of the hands and feet, not weights tied to a corpse to keep it down. In fact, after the standard amount of time, the body floated up. 3. You do not need to inflict external signs of violence on a man so as to tie him up. Two men pin him down and another one ties him up.]

    • Gaetano Pace says:

      One small remark. A dead person would have enough air in the lungs to keep him just on the surface with feet dangling down. So even if he was murdered, the killer wanted to hide the corpse permanently. This I learned from experience in my previous job and forensics. Criminal intent in this instance was so evil and brutal beyond imagination if not psychiatric.

  10. H.P. Baxxter says:

    Or that Libyan militia leader who died in Malta.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Maltese press corps are all morons. To a man.

  11. Francis Saliba M.D. says:

    What are the Malta police doing under their fresh command to prevent crime and to investigate it and to prosecute offenders? They seem to be distracted by more serious crimes such as using a mobile phone in the sacred precincts of the airport.

    Next to the report that there were no external signs of violence on this corpse are we going to be told that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the case and that the Montenegrin died from natural causes, before tying himself up and throwing himself into the sea?

  12. Joe Micallef says:

    Isn’t the incompetent puppet heading the police force still of the opinion that the general public is longing for more information, or is that just so when the victim is Maltese?

  13. Joe Fenech says:

    “These grisly murders are what bob to the surface as indicators of what is going on in the murky waters beneath.”

    Malta’s underworld has always saved the country from total bankruptcy.

  14. albona says:

    The sad truth is that when it is a foreigner who is murdered in this ‘art helwa’ the Maltese just think: ‘Thank God, one less’.

  15. There are ways and means by which the authorities may be made to tell the public what progress, if any, has been made in particular investigations. These means are available to the media and the Opposition in parliament.

    The cases quoted above merit the use of such means.

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