Anthony Zammit: the case begins to be heard at last

I find it interesting the way proceedings began with a request FROM THE PROSECUTION, and not from the alleged perpetrator’s defence counsel, for the trial to be heard behind closed doors “because of Professor Zammit’s position at the time as an MP and a number of articles that had appeared in the media about the case.”

Given that the prosecutor is clearly referring to me because I was the only one stating the obvious about the case at the time, I feel I should respond.

It is precisely because Zammit was a member of parliament at the time that this case should not be heard behind closed doors. It happened when he was accountable to the people as their representative in parliament.

Here’s what I said back then (repeatedly): the twin facts of the men having entered using a house key and of Anthony Zammit being found tied, face down, to the bed are significant and indicative that the perpetrators, or their fellows, had done this before in different circumstances.

Why would you tie a man face down to the bed instead of simply trussing him up on the floor or strapping him to a chair, both of which are easier and the common practice?

Why would somebody have your house-key, if you haven’t lost it or given him a copy? When we give people our house key, we know to whom we have given it, and if that person didn’t use the key himself, then he got it off the person to whom we gave it.

Times of Malta reports:

REQUEST FOR CLOSED DOOR HEARING REJECTED

When the trial started, prosecutor Lara Lanfranco from the Attorney General’s Office requested that the case be heard behind closed doors because of Prof Zammit’s position at the time as an MP and a number of articles that had appeared in the media about the case.

Mr. Justice Lawrence Quintano turned down the request.

I don’t know why people were so astonished at my off-the-cuff assessment of what probably happened, or why the press swallowed Anthony Zammit’s version unquestioningly. Maybe because they’re not from my part of Sliema as Anthony Zammit is and so don’t know that his sexuality isn’t at all a secret but just follows the rules of discretion that governed most of his generation?

To my mind, this follows the classic pattern of an older gay man with a lifelong habit of getting his jollies from rough trade in secret (the best thing about living in the era of the disintegrating closet is that younger gay men are free of all that) being roughed up and robbed by that same rough trade after they have first won his confidence and trust and have obtained free access to his home.

This is not at all a new story.

When I was a child, our next-door neighbour (gay, not Maltese) had rough trade (Maltese) opening his ‘antiporta’ and walking straight in without ringing the bell, at all hours of the day and evening (and probably night). A few of them looked like criminals, and it really was not that sort of street at all, so they really stood out in a bad way. One of them was shortly afterwards in the news for being murdered – or involved in a murder, I can’t remember which.

Another neighbour (gay, Maltese) was found hacked to death with a pair of scissors, presumably by some rough trade he had picked up as he usually did. I don’t think the perpetrator was ever caught.

And let’s not forget the most high-profile case of all: Super One hairdresser Alfie Rizzo (married with children), murdered in his salon by a boy he had picked up from Gzira and taken back there at night for sex as was his habit. Had he survived, he would probably have said he was surprised in his salon, having gone there at night to check something, by somebody who attacked him and robbed him.

There’s no point in being all ‘Pollyanna’ about this. This is life. This is reality.