War on drugs update: meet a convicted cocaine trafficker at the National Book Festival
Meinrad Calleja, the notorious Brazil-London-Rome-Malta-Brazil cocaine trafficker who served time in Rome and 15 years at Corradino Prisons (his defence counsel is now the Police Minister) is one of the keynote speakers at the National Book Festival next month.
And no, the topic is not ‘My life as a cocaine trafficker investigated by the British, Italian and Maltese police’ or ‘Life in prison in Rome and Malta’ or even ‘How to bring cocaine into Malta through the VIP lounge when your father is head of the army and nobody stops you’.
He’s speaking about philosophy. This is unspeakably wrong of the National Book Council. If they must include a convicted felon and cocaine trafficker in their programme, they should bill him as such and make that the USP. To do otherwise is to deceive the public, who may have objections to being lured in under false pretences to listen to somebody like that.
This isn’t a minor crime we are talking about. Calleja received one of the longest prison sentences for drug-trafficking in the history of Maltese crime.
Whether he is ‘reformed’ or not is irrelevant. That is one hell of a foul person.
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http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/ui/files/Programm_NBC_EnglishOutlinesWeb%20(1).pdf
Click on this link and this is what one gets:
File [[ controllers/ui.controller.php (maltatoday\controllers\ui_controller) ]] does not exist
[Daphne – Copy and paste the link into your browser bar.]
Right.
He is speaking about Philosophy.
That is his most lucrative market.
Students of Philosophy are more likely to do drugs than any others.
This is proven by statistics practically worldwide.
In the UK it is around 85% compared to 55% with medical students.
So there you are.
Oh, why don’t you stop talking bollocks? I can’t understand how Daphne hasn’t chastised you yet… honestly
Forget the first lecture, go to the one being held on Saturday at 20:00. U la tarah ghidlu Kapxinn sell’ghalik.
What are you on?
I’d ask “Are you bloody serious?”, but we know better than to ask, don’t we. Surreal.
Kemm kien irqaq Manuel Taghna.
“If they must include a convicted felon and cocaine trafficker in their programme, they should bill him as such and make that the USP. ”
SPOT ON !
The Chairperson of the National Book Council is that communist intellectual wannabee Mark Camilleri.
Well. Everyone can write books and publish them. Bobby Sands wrote One Day in My Life in prison (on toilet paper).
The issue here is whether he should be a key-note speaker. Back in the days, as far as I remember he also attended university whilst he was serving his prison sentence.
Consolation. In Italy we have Schettino lecturing students at the University of Rome on following emergency procedures on board. The world is topsy turvy.
The National Book Festival logo design fits in well with this thirten year old newspaper photo.
Was this a decision taken by council members or are the problems mentioned in this article still ongoing?
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/33358/resignations-looming-on-national-book-council-20140122#.VEgpL_mUd8E
Quite a difference between Mark Camilleri and Gorg Mallia, the previous chairman who was replaced by Camilleri.
If a convicted person has served his punishment, should he not have a right to a normal life, if he is no longer involved in criminal activity?
[Daphne – David, the fact that a man has ‘served his dues’ has absolutely no bearing on what sort of person he is, which is the point at issue here. Stints in jail do not change very bad people for the better. Would you have said of Mario Camilleri L-Imriehu, for example, that he had paid his dues so that’s all right then? He served his prison sentence all right, and look what happened when he got out.
You have no way of knowing whether people of this sort are still involved in criminal activity – that is my point. Also, certain crimes are in a class of their own, and there is no ‘paying of dues’ which renders certain sorts of convicted felons acceptable or even safe.
What’s your take on a man who kills five people, for instance, spends 25 years in prison, and then expects to gad about as though prison has drawn a line between him and his crimes? Would you say, oh, he’s paid his dues, so I’m quite happy to socialize with him?
This isn’t shoplifting we’re talking about. This is very serious and chronic crime, and criminals of that nature do not have Damascene moments. The most you can hope for is that their fear of another stint in jail will make them control themselves. This is not the same thing as a personality change or a sudden shift in morality.]
My objection is another one altogether.
Who in the fcvk is Meinrad Calleja to give a lecture on philosophy?
Xarabank, ho hey ho.
Exactly, and who are the nitwits who thought it right to give him this forum to speak to young people who don’t know his dreadful history?
Utterly shameful – they are trying to legitimise the man, to change his reputation ghal ghajn in-nies, ghax rehabilitat ta hi. What bollocks.
“…has served his punishment…”
You supercilious twerp. Why don’t you ask the thousands of families whose lives were shattered by traffickers like Meinrad and who lost their children to overdoses and worse.
Let him live a normal life by all means, but promoting him in public as an intellectual to be listened to just adds to the enormous pain that he has caused.
I would like to see him apologise rather before he discusses books. He has never done anything of the sort.
Spot on, Baxxter. The latest norm for modern society – everyone’s opinion is valid.
We must have run out of “intelletwali”, Mike, now that Serracino Inglott is dead. The rest of them – Oliver Friggieri, Joe Friggieri – don’t do mejda tal-qubbajt talks. At a pinch, they could’ve roped in Maria Grech Ganado (whatever happened to her?), Vicki Ann Cremona (whatever happened to her?) and John Schranz, bless him.
Malta sucks. Because its intellectuals suck.
Baxxter, you’re going to like the editor’s note on Le Point this week:
Soft Communism all due to the idiocy promoted by Liberals.
I agree. Meinrad Calleja’s been reinvented as a pet academic project. That doesn’t make him a competent academic, much less a philosopher.
Here he is, dining at Le Procope
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/t31.0-8/10295375_10152097502932951_2538094071488955150_o.jpg
Yet again, we have a complete impostor posing as an intellectual, and none of my countrymen will challenge him. This is what it’s always been about. It’s not about Labour and PN. It’s this. The charade.
[Daphne – How is he posing as an intellectual there? He’s with his octogenarian father, somebody’s south-east Asian girlfriend, and two men who look like a couple of crooks.]
By making it a point to upload a photo of himself at Le Procope. It was a favourite haunt of 18th century French philosophers and intellectuals. Context is all.
[Daphne – I doubt that’s the reason they chose it. Like all historic restaurants everywhere, it’s a tourist magnet.]
Yes, we may never know 100% if a person is not involved in some criminal activities. However if a convicted person has no pending cases and one assumes the police force and the security service monitor known convicted criminals, then I say this person has a right to a normal life.
If say a convicted murderer is freed from prison and then decides to be a painter. Should a museum prevent him from organising an exhibition of his paintings in its premises?
[Daphne – David, this is not a new debate and the answer is yes. Incidentally, your choice of verb is wrong. Saying that a museum ‘prevents’ people from holding exhibitions there assumes that artists holding exhibitions in a museum is the default situation. In the real world outside Malta, artists do not hold exhibitions in museums. Museums themselves organise and curate exhibitions of work by notable artists. It is the museum’s exhibition and not the artist’s. Artists hold exhibitions in galleries, always at the invitation of the gallery – and if they are not invited to show their work at a gallery, this does not mean that the gallery is ‘preventing’ them. A certain kind of gallery might show work by a murderer just for the edgy USP, but then again, it would all depend on what sort of murderer. Not a child murderer, not a murderer-cum-rapist, and most certainly not a serial killer of women. There would be an outcry and the gallery would suffer – justifiably.
I think that, as a completely literal person who is unable to grasp certain abstract concepts, you cannot see that this debate is not about serving dues and normal lives, but about the glorification of criminals and crime.
There is an ongoing parallel debate about whether criminals should be allowed to profit from their crime by, for example, writing books about it. You would probably argue, why not? Try, for a moment, to imagine why not.]
I laugh at the literal vs abstract. What is literal is also abstract. I will not repeat my point but naturally I would not glorify crime. There have been murderers who were also famous artists. Their art in no way can be interpreted to mean that murder is acceptable.
In Italy a former terrorist leader Renato Curcio is also considered as an intellectual. He has written many publications. A number of years Italian state tv interviewed many former terrorists.
[Daphne – Italy is one of the most corrupt countries on earth, David. Its main gift to the world was not food, or fashion, or great painting, or Leonardo da Vinci. It was organised crime. And the reason organised crime flourished there is because the system was inherently corrupt to begin with, and democracy was weak. Only in Italy would a terrorist leader be championed as an intellectual. Everywhere else he would be a terrorist with pretensions.]
In Malta a book was written about a convicted double murderer who died recently. This person was also interviewed on a local tv programme. Probably you would say that this is unacceptable. However I distinguish the person from his deeds.
[Daphne – More fool you, then, David, because the deeds are committed by the person and not by some alien possessing spirit. Know that while there are good people who do bad things, there are also bad people, very bad people, and the fact that they sometimes do good things doesn’t change what they inherently are.]
I wonder what Meinrad’s old Brazilian contacts are up to.
What a coincidence that Manuel was his lawyer and now ends up all cosy in with the new (London) – Brazil – Malta – Croatia (China) crowd?
X’kumbinazzjoni… ix-xitan mhux tentazzjoni?
U x’kumbinazzjoni li Ryan Il-Friza harab u tnejn ohra inqatlu.
U hadd ma’ nqabad.
X’kumbinazzjoni, marelli.
Dawn l-affarijiet kif jsiru bla ma’ jkun jaf hadd?
Vapur ta’ “Ryan” jinqabad, hadd mill-gurnali jaghmel one plus one.
Keith Schembri jhott iz-zokkor tieghu fil-bini tas-Super One u mbaghad dax-xoghol jinbieh fil- More supermarkets ta’ “Ryan” u hadd ma jara xejn.
Hadd m’ghandu l-guts jghid xejn. Dawn il-boloh bhal Kurt Farrugia li lanqas jilhqu sa pesis Joseph, jekk ghandu.
U meta’ jigi anke Saviour b’xi domanda ma’ jghidulu xejn.
Miskin.
This country has gone to the dogs! Right has become wrong and vice versa. Unfortunately this is the direction which this corrupt and inept party in government is giving to society. Just boycott such events like I do; it’s the minimum one can do.