There was nothing mysterious about the murder of Peter Jones
Long-time L-Orizzont reporter John Pisani, now working for Saviour Balzan at Malta Today, has brought his terrible English to bear on what he calls the mysterious murder of Peter Jones in Sliema in 1997.
I suppose it is only coincidental that I happened to have brought up this very case in passing on this website, when discussing the trial of the man charged with trussing up naked Labour MP and surgeon Anthony Zammit on his bed and robbing him, after first having let himself into his house using a key which Zammit had handed out.
I used the case to illustrate the point that people find it more convenient to miss: that gay men of a certain age, who are uncomfortable with having a normal relationship as their younger counterparts do and so prefer to conduct covert liaisons with unsavoury nonentities (or perhaps this is their sexual preference anyway), are at serious risk of being robbed or murdered by the men they pick up and take home, or to whom they give door-keys and access.
This is, after all, the way the hairdresser Alfie Rizzo was murdered, not long after Peter Jones was. Despite being married with children, it was Rizzo’s regular habit over many years to cruise the Gzira strand looking for young North African men or boys to pick up and take back to his salon at night for sex. Finally, one of them killed him.
For all the mystery L-Orizzont/Malta Today man Pisani tries to conjure up, with his tales of mysterious murderous Tunisians and Peter Jones’s trips to Tunisia, the facts are rather more sordidly pedestrian. The man the people of our neighbourhood knew as Mr Jones (he lived round the corner from my parents and obviously, round the corner from me when I lived with them) was murdered with a pair of sharp scissors in his own flat.
The person who murdered him did not break in. Mr Jones was homosexual and he picked up strange men, but nobody bothered about it and it wasn’t a secret or a let’s-all-pretend-it-isn’t-happening situation because he wasn’t married, he had no children and he never pretended to be straight. There was no big mysterious plot by a Tunisian crime boss, as John Pisani tries to make out for a spot of sensationalism. It was just one of those things.
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http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/court_and_police/39546/the_unsolved_murder_of_peter_jones#.U4uvHWdZodU
These tragic stories happened more in the 1950s and early 1960s elsewhere.
It is like Malta is caught in a time warp even in these matters.
The Kids in the Hall had a good skit with that time-line feel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtrlIWdQjU
I have big gaps in my knowledge of pre-internet Malta so I had never heard of Mr Rizzo. It transpires that he was very close to Ray Azzopardi the now ‘Embarrassdor’ to Belgium.
Close?
Prosit daphne tajt il-versjoni kollha li gurnalist John Pisani suppost ta’ esperjenza halla barra. Tghid ghaliex?
Insomma tal-PL dejjem hekk nofs verita li hija aghar minn gidba.
The True Story of Joseph Cuschieri
Way back in 2008, Joseph Cuschieri was unsure he would be elected. So he struck a backroom deal with certain Party big shots, pezzonovante, hot shit – well you know what I mean. Among these was Labour Don, George Vella.
The agreement, brokered by the other big name in the Cuschieri family, Emanuel, was sealed by Karmenu Vella and blessed by Varist Bartlu. At the time Bartlu was sure he would be supported by the Clan in his quest to become Deputy Leader. The Clan eventually jilted him and he decided to run for the top job instead. (We know that he failed dismally.)
It was therefore agreed that the Executive would choose the tenth district for Varist Bartlu’s second seat where Cuschieri would be certainly elected.
The deal was offered to him: he would be elected in the by-election. Sant would then resign and he (Cuschieri) would have to cede his seat to somebody who would bring newness to the Party.
Cuschieri was overwhelmed by emotion. He considered George Vella his godfather (“parrinu”) in politics. Charlie Mangion – by then Interim Leader of the Opposition – was putting extreme pressure on him to do the right thing. It was really an offer Cuschieri could not refuse.
Cuschieri went to Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and some two or three other lawyers with a contract the Clan offered him. It was either his signature or his something-else that would go on that contract.
The lawyers he spoke to gave him their advice. Finally, Cuschieri acquiesced and signed. Joseph Muscat would get his seat in Parliament and the helm of the Ship of the Party.
It was at this stage that Bartlu got jilted, and he reacted hysterically.
In the meantime, the Nationalists got wind of the contract and published a feeble story in il-mument … but they did not press on it and never cashed in on the enormous potential of the story.
The contents of the contract were very simple. Cuschieri was offered a lucrative job at the Party.
But as time went by, Cuschieri felt more and more betrayed by Muscat …