The Labour Party has to understand that behaviour which is or which is perceived to be vindictive does it far more damage than it does to its victims
A comment posted by retired senior police officer Gaetano Pace beneath my post yesterday about Superintendent Carmelo Bartolo:
Young man, it was Labour in the 1970s that transferred me on a very, very regular basis because I outright refused to withdraw a case against two thugs who beat a constable while he was on duty.
I was surreptitiously instructed to drop the case. I stuck by my guns, and every time I wrote my refusal in the file the next day was my transfer day.
One transfer lasted only twenty minutes. I was transferred to Paola police station to start working there at 8a.m. the following day. I reported for duty at Paola. I asked the telephone operator for a cup of tea. He came back immediately telling me: “Sorry sir, the kettle is not ready but your transfer is”, and he showed me the teleprinter message.
Ultimately, my personal dossier file was opened, and an extract was sent to Hamrun police station instructing my Superintendent to order me, “an insubordinate, rebellious, disobedient, undisciplined officer”, to withdraw the case.
If any of these charges would have been proven I would have faced even life imprisonment. I stood my ground for I was in the right, and replied: “If the Commissioner has as much proof in his allegations as I have in this case which I am prosecuting, let him proceed in court as I did.”
Nothing happened except that I stood by my men even at my own expense at times. The greatest thing that happened was that THE TRUTH WON.
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Labour propagandists are putting their diehard supporters’ mind at rest by telling them that the vote on the resolution on passport sales by the EU parliamentarians is not binding.
Labour already knows what it’s going to look like next Thursday.
This is just like the comment on the magistrate’s court by the police commissioner in the Norman Vella case.
Unfortunately my father is not around any more, but he would have fully endorsed what Mr. Pace wrote here.
He also went through hell when he was a police sergeant during the Golden years of Labour, for the same reasons as mentioned above.
“The truth won.” Well done, Mr.Pace. Let’s hope that there will be more people like you to stand up to these bullies. These are the cases that should merit the ‘Gieh ir-Repubblika “
I was paid my salary for what I did. I earned my bread and butter. The applause I leave to others to enjoy. Mind you this one single incident was just the tip of the iceberg.
Good morning, Daphne.
Speaking about vindictive behaviour.
I am sitting right now at the Mater Dei reception directly in front of the phlebotomy room.
There’s this short, stumpy ugly man with his wife who seems to think highly of his position in the grand scheme of things. I think he has been rubbed the wrong way by the security man who didn’t seem to have been inclined to allow him to get in out of turn. At least that’s my understanding of the situation.
He is making a big show and saying in front of the waiting crowd – “Kemm hu supperv! Tini t-telecell ha ncempel lill-ministru”.
“Ma jkellimnix? Ma jkellimx lili? Issa tara jkellimnix”, he asserts confidently to the mumbling crowd.
And on the phone, following a couple of minutes of very visible furious pacing and posturing, waiting for his wife to fish an ancient mobile phone out of her voluminous handbag, “Hello Fredu. Ic-chairman jien. Iva c-chairman…Il-marid mhux hekk! Mhux hekk il-marid!…”
Anyway, the chairman (pertaining to what body I have not been able to determine) was apparently deemed not important enough to speak to the minister.
It seems certain however, that today in Malta taghna lkoll as it was in the golden years, you are directly reported to the minister if you do your job without fear or favour.
Under the Malta Labour Party it was, and still is, a suicidal risk for any conscientious police man to attempt to carry out his duty of preventing crime, enforcing the law and to bring criminals to justice without fear or favour.
Only the clueless would not be aware of the very real danger of becoming themselves the targets of persecution by their departmental and political superiors.
As Police Medical Officer I had to assist strong capable police officers of all ranks from Commissioners of Police all the way down to constables on the beat being reduced to mental wrecks by a campaign of political persecution from above.
On one memorable occasion when I interceded with the Police Commissioner on behalf of one such victim, as was my duty as Police Medical Officer, unbelievably, in so many words, I was actually instructed not to treat that particular policeman because they were actually trying to hound him out of the force for doing his duty. I ignored that advice and suffered irreparable consequences. May God forgive the culprits.
I am so sad that it seems that those terrible days are back again.
It is becoming more evident that the tactics used during “Mintoff Golden Days” are back with us. With Manuel Mallia, Silvio Scerri and Peter Paul Zammit running the police force we might be in for a very tough time.
Allow me to say this:….indeed “Truth won” imma il-poplu jinsa!
In the run-up to the 1987 general election, prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, in spite of all his faults, felt the need to call in Brigadier Maurice Calleja to oversee the security arrangements around the vote-counting centre because he feared that certain elements would want to tamper with the process.
The police and the army were given different assignments in the security arrangements.
Thanks to a clear warning from the army to the police when the Labour Party asked for a suspension in the vote-counting process – a replica of the suspension of the magisterial on-sight inquiry in the frame-up of P.P. Busuttil, during which incriminating evidence was planted by the police – KMB’s well-founded suspicions were foiled.
Today, Joseph Muscat has ensured straight away that the officers leading both the army and the police are handpicked party supporters.
As I have already written, step by step we are steadily going back to the 80s. Lessons have been learned, not by the electorate, but by those wielding power.
If I am not mistaken Gaetano Pace suffered a bomb attack on his private residence in St Venera and Dr Saliba’s clinic door at the Police HQ was set on fire during Labour’s golden years.