Imagine if Silvio Scerri had been a priest who’d had sex with an adult, female parishioner
This report be on the front page, at the top, with the headline: POLICE MINISTER CHIEF FACING ATTEMPTED MURDER PROBE.
Instead, Times of Malta has buried it on page two, a LHS page where stories are easy to miss because the eye goes naturally to the right.
And the fact that the Police Minister’s chief of staff is right now being investigated in a contract murder probe, and was already being investigated when he was appointed to that position, is not news.
His name is buried right down in the story when it is the main event. Nor is there any mention of the fact that the reason why Silvio Scerri had it in for Scott Dixon (whether he tried to contract his murder or not is another matter) is that the mother of his children left him for Dixon and was seeing him at the time (she no longer is).
That is not a ‘private life issue’. That is a key piece of information.
If Silvio Scerri had been a priest who was accused of having sex with an adult, female parishioner, he would have been splashed all over the news. But because he is the Police Minister’s chief of staff who is being investigated – by the police – for trying to contract the murder of a love rival, it’s just a sidebar story of no particular interest.
Maybe if Silvio Scerri had tried to contract the murder of a priest he’d had sex with, it would have been a different matter. “Ghax dak mhux private life ghax patri u mhux suppost, allura dak skandlu jigi.”
And then on the facing page 3, oblivious to the offensive irony, Times of Malta runs a story about Silvio Scerri’s boss and the police who are meant to be investigating Scerri but who are probably far too afraid to do so.
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That report also said that a police investigator claimed that the allegation against Silvio Scerri (one should not forget, his Minister’s right-hand man), may not be true.
That still leaves the possibility that it may be true.
This is the game of whether one sees a glass as half-full or half-empty. An impartial investigator should not approach his task with a declared bias.
Back in the day, newspapers used to charge much less for an advert on page two than on page three. That was because they knew full well that page two was all but invisible to the reader as you have already stated. I don’t know if this is still the practice today.
Besides not mentioning the pertinent bits as you describe, they have also decided to include a photo of the alleged victim but not the alleged murder contractor. Did they have a problem finding a photo of Silvio Scerri? We now know who he is.
What about the choice of the photo of the alleged victim? What would a reader likely see if he looked at that photo – would he associate it with someone on the receiving end of a crime?
The whole mess was nothing to do with boxing, so just as Scerri is not splashed on newspapers in his swimming trunks, there was no reason why Scott Dixon could not be protrayed in his normal attire, seeing as the issue is allegedly about a romantic relationship.
It also seems strange to me that the Chircop/Farrugia case is able to proceed in court BEFORE the murder plot allegation issue is concluded. It somehow reminds me of TV plots where the police go after the alleged victim of rape before the actual case of rape is disproved. But such foul play would not happen in Malta of course.
The two cases are separate: one is a libel court case, while the other is just an investigation.
Please forgive me for sounding naive, but I left Malta over 10 years ago.
Where does Silvio Scerri get all this power from? Why does he have this hold on his “boss”?
I once had something to do with this man, about 15 years ago, and he came across really badly. When I backed off from a possible business agreement he became verbally aggressive. His reaction confirmed my gut feeling and I was glad I decided against having anything to do with him.
You’re kidding right?
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-11-11/local-news/Traffic-problems-persist-Lija-works-causing-long-delays-as-TVM-tries-to-limit-the-damage-6736125411
Panic everywhere as Mizzi discovers the harsh reality of EU programme funding deadlines.
Eighteen months to revise Bormla managing to produce a black spot right next to Dock 1 gate, bless him, onto Msida, Lija and the Coast Road conjunctively.
Ok, so he plonked a couple of gutters across Valley Road.
Seems the only thing this minister’s good at is rushing from one chaotic job to another. Or maybe it’s Labour’s cunning plan to force us to take the bus.
As for the quality of the work, I’ve never seen tree planters trimmed in sliced bricks, edges jutting out at car tyres.
They’ve proceeded to lay a kerb ON TOP of the new ‘tarmac’, right opposite Tikams, cement expressively dolloped, the intention presumably to seal the base.
Jew ahjar, kif jinghad fid-dinja tal-kuntratturi, kulhadd jghaffeg fuq xulxin.
They’ve recently announced state of the art electronic traffic management, brace yourselves. Fancy ten minutes at a red light in downtown Fawwara anyone?
They were very quick to charge Fr Montebello on the flimsiest of evidence, not to mention the fact that Fr Fenech’s actions hardly amount to a criminal offence, depending of course on how ‘vulnerable’ his ‘victim’ actually was.
What was Fr Montebello charged with? Bribery? What bribery? Since when is passing a message towards civil compensation ‘bribery’? In the circumstances, the “six-figure” sum would more likely result in a case of extortion than bribery.
Compare this with the Scerri case. Now that three years have elapsed, are they still building a case against the Pole and his ‘accomplices’ once the police have determined that Scerri’s word counts more than that of two complainants and one main witness?
To my knowledge Father Montebello has not been charged with any offence but that a criminal complaint has been filed against him with the police. I tend to agree with Kev on bribery.
Yes, you’re right, no charges yet.
In this case Fr. Montebello is more a victim of his ‘brother’ than trying to bribe someone.
In Malta we seem to have developed two ways to deal with investigations which we do not want to deal with: either put them permanently on the backburner or else shamelessly sweep the whole matter under the carpet.
Yet another faux pas exposed in the press today, remember the Gensna incident where workers were injured, one of whom needed emergency surgery to have his spleen removed?
This in itself has life-long consequences, putting him at risk of infection, and requiring long-term treatment. The victim, Mr Ronayne wrote to the OHSA.
“To his great surprise, however, an OHSA emailed him to tell him that the authority did not carry out any investigation on the incident that you mentioned, and will thus not take any steps itself’.”
Who, one asks, was duty bound to investigate an incident, where people were injured at their place of work. besides of course the police?
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-11-11/local-news/Man-critically-injured-in-Gensna-lighting-collapse-files-judicial-protest-against-OHSA-6736125436
It should not be surprising that Inspector Chris Pullicino is ‘protecting’ his Minister’s Chief of Staff Silvio Scerri.
This so called investigation was totally vitiated and Inspector Pullicino was so biased that he interpreted the events in his own way and ended up arresting Ms Chircop and locking her up at the Floriana police lock up to the delight of Silvio Scerri.
The latter was only questioned in the Inspector’s office and was not detained in a cell. Police records can show this.
Now even though the ‘investigation’ is not yet concluded the inspector is hinting that the report was false. This is highly suspicious because the police never commit themselves to such statements concerning ongoing investigations unless there is some hidden agenda.
If the inspector has reason to believe that the report was false he should prosecute the persons filing the report.
But the truth is that this report was not false and the inspector has no proof to substantiate his claim. He is just trying to cover up for his friend Silvio Scerri. After all he has to show him gratitude for ‘promoting’ him to ‘Officer in Charge’ while waiting to be promoted to the rank of Superintendent.
Way back in 2012 Inspector Chris Pullicino was investigated by the than Police Commissioner John Rizzo on accusations of corruption in connection with a homicide case he was investigating and prosecuting in court.
Mr Rizzo did not have enough proof to charge him and as it was his custom to deal with such situations he ‘punished’ him by taking him off the Homicide Squad.
Following the change in government and Silvio Scerri’s appointment to Chief of Staff at the Ministry for Interior and National Security, Inspector Pullicino was redeployed to the Homicide Squad, as officer in charge.