Ironically they call them “Terrinati” because once, on the eve of an election, Ettore Bruno known as Terrinu, swore under oath in court that while serving at the Sei Sette Masonic Lodge of Marsamxett he saw Gerald Strickland wearing the masonic apron.

Alfred Sant did the same thing with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s Mistra case.

There was a lot of truth in both these cases.

The only point which is to be made clear and hammered, is that both Muscat and Mizzi are both proven liars beyond any reasonable doubt.

@curious They are not rumours. The deal has indeed stalled. It was supposed to have been signed off last spring. Now Mizzi says give him a few weeks and he’ll come up with a deadline.

If he thought Pullicino was squeaky clean wouldn’t he have backed him to the hilt?

[Daphne – I hope Simon Busuttil’s advisers are reading this comment, because this is exactly what I mean.]

As you say, Daphne, Joseph Muscat is so predictable that he’s transparent in this if in nothing else. It’s easy to see, for example, his strategy for next year’s local elections.

They will be held in spring, just weeks after the supposed inauguration of the new power station. This will be on everybody’s mind and the failed completion of the project could well influence how people vote.

Muscat has found a way to overcome this. The interconnector cable will be in place by February at the latest and in March they will finally shut down the Marsa power station. No doubt there will be much pomp and circumstance and much boasting of “keeping promises”. Muscat will say that he is closing down the “cancer factory” as promised and people will forget that when he spoke of a cancer factory he was not referring to the Marsa plant but to the BWSC one, using heavy fuel oil.

This, together with the reduction in tariffs for businesses will balance out the disappointment of the failed Electrogas power station and constitute the basis of the entire propaganda campaign for the elections. Who cares where they find the money? They will think of something.

There is also the possibility that, by then, things will have been smoothed out with Shangai Electric and the BWSC plant transferred to the Chinese government. This will be presented as another achievement and people will forget that the agreement with China has already been supposedly finalised and signed – again, with much pomp – in early 2014.

Incidentally, the interconnector should also have been ready by March of this year, so the shutting-down of the Marsa power station will have come a year late.

The PN is forewarned; it cannot allow these delays to be forgotten and presented as triumphs of the regime.

[Daphne – That’s not the point.]

Dear Etienne,

There is no Offence of attempted fraud, but in real life this happens all the time.

The only reason an arraignment could have held water as described by Michael Cassar, was passing the muster at the first evaluation of the case being the Prima Facie decision, does not mean there could have been a conviction, only that there seems to have been indicative evidence. This is where the all important circumstantial evidence comes in, but it is enough to break anyone, yet never enough to convict, as the level of evidence in Maltese criminal law practice is factual evidence of a level held to be beyond reasonable doubt.

[Daphne – Not really. If that were the case, that man would never have been found guilty of breaking into Anthony Zammit’s home, tying him up and robbing him.]

Probably so that second cannot build his defence on the results of the first case.

Perhaps a “letter of comfort” which in banking circles are known to be of no comfort at all. when it comes to the crunch.