What’s the deal here?
Published:
December 8, 2014 at 2:54am
Stephen Smith was spotted walking along the Strand in Gzira on Friday evening at around 8.30pm, between Star Fish & Chops and Café Jubilee, in very good spirits with a young woman on either side of him, a smile on his face and cracking jokes.
Meanwhile, that same evening the Commissioner of Police was seen with his wife, eating a pizza capricciosa at Fontanella in Mdina.
All the main protagonists are cool and relaxed, except for PC533 who is held on remand, while the public fumes with increasing agitation at each new revelation.
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Sheehan forsi biex jimpressjona qal li ghandu l-ministru mieghu. Jekk il-ministru qal li kien qieghed l-ikla l-Furjana ghandu x-xhieda. Ukoll qal li faqghewlu l-karozza u ma kien vera xejn.
Are you sure that PC533 is beig held on remand? The last news about him was that he was taken to hospital after being arraigned. Is he still in hospital?
Il-poter mhux tajjeb ghal dan it-tip ta nies. Bilfors li hemm interessi w flejjes kbar involuti biex qisu mhu xejn ghalihom.
Didn’t the Minister say, in the press conference the day after I believe, that he was Police HQ but did not speak to the Commissioner because he was in another room?
I apologise for sounding negative but they are going to get away with it, that’s what.
That’s what their cabinet and other meetings have been about, how to get away with this and keep feeding themselves at the trough.
Looks like a ‘Toad in the Hole’ to me.
I never quite understood why Smith asked to see the minister while being held by the police.
Was it because he knew Mallia was in the car with Sheehan?
Sheehan says at one point he has spoken to the minister but not that he called him, later on there is a very dry telephone conversation with the minister asking about the whereabouts of his daughter.
And where did the minister say he was that evening?
Jekk jien insuq fis-sakra iresquni l-qorti?
The Police Commissioner told the PM’s spokesman that “warning shots” were fired because he never imagined that the driver (and policeman) would have done otherwise (i.e. shot anywhere but in the air).
The PM’s spokesman understood from the Police Commissioner that it was a hit and run, based on his chat with him on the phone
The minister was not in the car but at the police HQ.
The minister does not deal in drugs. The 500k at his home was because his clients could only pay him in cash.
Conclusion: this was not so much a cover up as it was a very unprofessional handling from all sides of government.
The Police Commissioner should not be rushed into issuing statements with the PM’s PRO. The PRO should have waited for the police report. The minister should not have lied about not knowing the driver until he was hired.
Yes, the minister should resign because he lied more than once whilst in government. Else the PM should have the balls to fire him. Any minister, but especially the home affairs one, has to be whiter than white. Clearly this one is too dodgy, albeit a smartass.
The PM wants the three retired judges to declare Mallia inadequate because he is afraid Mallia would lose him votes, and deep down the PM is a weak person. He is very conniving and very distrustful. He will use you until he does not need you.
I’m sorry to say Simon Busuttil has yet to go a long way before becoming a true leader. I would certainly prefer voting for him rather than Muscat, because he is the lesser of both evils. But he must stop using cheap tricks to criticize government and he must remember that half the electorate actually have brains, and are not simple avid PN supporters.
From the transcript it is clear that PC533 was in a severely agitated state. Was this due to a broken side mirror?
Mallia knew this man. He was his canvasser. In our system, the Minister’s driver is a person of trust.
From what we heard today I wouldn’t allow him with a toy gun let alone a real one in the presence of my daughter.
Mallia is completely reckless and must go immediately.
What the hell happened? Smith is still alive and kicking. Why his silence? What is he hiding?
If this had happened to a normal person one would have made sure that their side of the story be told. Maybe they made a place in the trough for him? Cut him a nice slice of cake?
Muscat’s reaction to all this must be:
“X’iz-zigg ha naghmel issa?”
Xi z-zigg trid taghmel? Izzeggek aktar milli zeggikt, xi z-zigg ta’ siehbi zeggikt?
According to last night’s late Net News more recordings are to be released during the week.
In the recording it seems that at 0.46 sec right after Sheehan said ‘Aw doktor’ there is someone saying Vauxhall.
I think it should be clear now to those with half a brain: Mallia gave up a lucrative job but in return he was promised an even more lucrative one.
In return he helps the Labour Party financially.
For all this to work out he needed to be unfettered. So instead of appointing a streetwise justice minister like Jose Herrera would have been, they put pretty boy Owen in charge of justice.
Owen Bonnici is more interested in running after teenage girls then drug dealers.
Look at the legislation ‘he’ (I’m sure Mallia is behind this) proposed re drugs. Drug dealers are delighted as all they have to do now is deal more often but in smaller quantities and it is not even a criminal offence any longer when their clients are caught.
There is only one word that describes these people: ZIBEL.
Is there any chance of seeing Joseph Muscat visiting the president this morning to hand in his resignation and dissolve parliament?
Maybe he works in that area
“Il-postman ghamel siegha gewwa. Issa hareg mill-bieb ta’ wara.”
“OK siehbi.”
Don Manuel is much more cunning and farsighted than Joseph Muscat. Now that he has them all in his pockets, he will dare them to cast the first stone.
ok siehbi
All of them so confident about the result of the inquiry by three independent retired judges that keeps the rest of the country on disgusted tenterhooks awaiting the publication of the result.
They must know something that the rest of us do not know (but can guess).
John Dalli will soon be developing more psycho social health problems which will prevent him from travelling.
28 years ago a ‘warning’ shot claimed the life of an innocent bystander.
Obviously, all are assured that the outcome of the inquiry set up by Joseph Muscat is a done deal. Joseph Muscat has already shown himself unable to shoulder political responsibility, much less to sack Manuel Mallia and the A/Commissioner of Police. In their view, all they have to do is survive up to Christmas, when people’s attention will shift elsewhere and come January all will again be well with their world.
I can’t find Mallia’s official website. Is it a perception?
OK Siehbi I give the orders and you carry the can.
So while the whole country is discussing the Mallia cover-up, and how Muscat is handling the situation and the way he is treating the electorate, Josianne Cassar of Malta Today is shocked at the way Busuttil dealt with journalists at the press conference.
Incidentally, this is the same woman who wrote about the Lisa Zahra tragedy, where she had said that Erin Palmier “may have crossed the red line ”
Veru miskina.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/47192/thats_no_way_to_treat_journalists_simon#.VIVhpWK9KSM
[Daphne – Oh for heaven’s sake, Freedom5, you know that one of the worst Mintoffian ministers, Philip Muscat, was her blood uncle (not uncle by marriage) and that her family returned from California to Malta precisely in the worst period – the Golden Years of Labour – when everybody else who could was fleeing and not coming back. She’s one of those people who pretend otherwise to look good and for social acceptance, because if they were honest they would be waving Labour flags and screaming Ma Taghmlu Xejn at a mass meeting, and then they wouldn’t be able to forge ahead socially and in business. Because that’s the irony – they’re not so proud to be Labour after all. If Josanne Cassar were proud to be Labour she’d be telling us about her politics. But she doesn’t. Funny how it’s only when a columnist thinks that her politics views are embarrassing that they suddenly become nobody’s business.]
The last supper for the Police Commissioner, perhaps?
Why does Stephen Smith self-describe himself as British and as Brasilian, when he is in fact Maltese? This emerges from his personal details which show up in the MFSA website relating to Waterbus International Limited and Ultimate Technology Limited.
[Daphne – He is a British citizen. The MFSA details originally listed him as Maltese but were changed immediately I highlighted that on this site. Brazilian?]
I thought they had a demo in the harbour last week.
We’ve figured it out. Sheehan was driving, talking on his phone, shooting. What was the minister doing in the car? Obviously he was holding the can of Red Bull.
Sheehan could be an octopus with many tentacles to do so many things all at once.
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/56921387.jpg
Breaking down this small phrase can explain much more that its comical use.
OK… “All is right, we have come to an agreement”
Siehbi…. “Partner, buddy…” Who calls his boss ‘siehbi’ ? One wouldnt call his manager siehbi unless he’s on very good personal terms…. and still not even on the phone, maybe after a good football match…. not exactly following a shoot-em-up in the middle of the street.
If the 3-judge inquiry board has found proof of crimes by top people, do they have to wait until after the horse bolts to issue their report?
The deal was and is:-
1. Smith trades his silence for immunity and possibly other considerations;
2. Commissioner of Police trades his complicity in the cover up for securing the top job;
3. Sheehan is expendable but taking the rap quietly he will be acquitted on a technical mistake of the prosecution (OK siehbi?);
4. Mallia tells the PM that if he goes he will drag the PM down with him, using the Kurt Farrugia connection and perhaps much else besides;
5. the PM sees the cover-up falling apart and after 24 hours sets up a three-man inquiry to protect himself personally from all of the above; his schoolyard attempt to involve the Opposition in this sham fails, so he has to go it alone;
6. the PM revives old issues in a vain attempt to divert attention away from this mess and accuses the Opposition of selective and staggered releasing of the taped calls (all of which the PM himself has had access to from the beginning);
The deals are falling through because last night we heard the leaked tape of Sheehan’s first call to the Control Room in which his two shots are heard and where Sheehan tells his superiors at HQ that he is shooting at Smith and he might have to keep shooting at him to stop him from escaping.
That call came in when Mallia was at HQ in the Police Commissioner’s company. His driver, his car, his daughter – and so you have to believe that Mallia was properly informed of Sheehan’s candid first account of the incident.
Malta’s Putin and Malta’s KGB.
I wonder what would have happened if this cover-up was not exposed. I think that the luckiest person in this story is Mr. Smith himself. He would have been thrown into a cell and accused of:
1. hit-and run,
2. assaulting a police officer,
3. driving while under influence,
4. resisting arrest.
And the main witness would obviously be Mr. Sheehan. Mr. Smith should thank his lucky stars, and not feel any obligation to anybody to stay silent.
That is probably because normal people are nowhere near party-fixated people. They think in terms of their interests first. As they should do. They want bygones to be bygones, and they do not want to be used for political advantage.
And it suits him well like that. He will gain nothing by going to PN or to your website crying and crying. He also knows that part of the fault of this mayhem is his and he’s not stopping when he should have stopped.
He operates a business related to driving, and him not being charged for careless driving could have well been enough for him. But yes, probably he got more. Leave him alone, whatever the deal, it is none of your business.
As far as all society is concerned, the alleged culprit is suspended from the police and is being processed.
[Daphne – ‘Whatever the deal, it is none of your business.’ It is not just my business, but the entire country’s business. A deal between the police, a citizen and a minister of state on the matter of covering up a very serious crime is a public-interest issue. Your reasoning is warped. This is not a third-world dictatorship or Italy, where people shoot at other people and deals are struck.]
This is not an issue where there is only one ‘culprit spot’.
If Smith was driving when three times over the alcohol limit (even taking into account that shamefully we allow the top alcohol limit in the EU), as we were told in the official banter, and, as has been alleged, without the cover of road licence and insurance, then it is very much everyone’s business.
This more so when he is back on the streets.
Now you are talking, Mila. This is the first comment that is apportioning blame, because from all the other comments, it seemed that the other party was just an non-provoking saintly victim.
But no word was said against Smith, at least not until he decided not to play to the tune, and leave justice to take its course. Yes of course, at least one is realising here that this is not a one culprit show.
[Daphne – If you were a dedicated reader of this website, you would know that most people commenting here think that there was no car accident, but an illicit deal gone wrong.]
That’s a theory in the mind of ‘most’ people commenting here and until it becomes official, it is nothing but fruit of the imagination.
And without a hint of published proof or substantiation, it is irresponsible to allow such allegations. That is not journalism. Not even Net TV went there.
I only comment on the basic facts as accepted by both political parties. So unless these allegations become official, any speculation is futile.
[Daphne – “I only comment on the basic facts as accepted by both political parties.” You would have been happy in communist China. Smith has the perfect solution in a democracy: speak to the press with his side of the story. We in the press have given him every opportunity by asking him repeatedly, and he has rejected those opportunities. So the only possible conclusion is that he does not want to give his side of the story for suspect reasons that include a deal struck with the corrupt authorities, and he is happy for the matter to be the subject of speculation. ]
One thing is sure. One has to be a total jerk to think that a minister’s driver will use the minister car in pursuit of ‘an illicit deal gone wrong’, which probably you want to imply drugs.
I mean, come on……….Do you have proof? What is the proof, that Mr. Smith did the right thing and did not go political? You think there is something sinister. This is beyond ridiculous.
[Daphne – No, one is not a complete jerk to think it. One is a complete jerk to do it. You must be young and uniformed indeed not to know that we live in a country where a minister’s driver, equipped with a machine gun, formed part of a convoy of thugs who went about shooting at PN clubs at night and eventually killed a man of 25, and where the police acquired the machine-gun from the man who used it and planted it on a totally innocent animal-herder and charged him with murder. Grow up. If you had the sort of parents who never gave you this information, never lived through it yourself, and now couldn’t be arsed to find out, do yourself a favour and become informed. The minister in question, incidentally, is now EU Commissioner in Brussels, checking tomato plants on eco-planters’ roofs. As for your last remark, if Smith were innocent and not complicit in something – where it was a drug deal or a deal to keep quiet – then as a normal person his reaction would be to speak to the press and sue the government for having one of its agents shoot at him.]
“i only believe official allegations”.
You’d be at home in North Korea. Why are you still here?
I think all the recordings are fake. Let’s not forget that Sheehan was free for a week.
The shots heard are slow and not as loud as they should be.
Do you still have reception to your mobile in a tunnel?
And last but not least, knowing how limited our vocabulary is, I cannot understand how come, not even a ‘haqulla’ word was recorded.
[Daphne – Use your intelligence. Why would the government create a phone call in which a minister’s driver is heard shooting and then claims to be shooting at somebody? To incriminate himself because he loves jail?]
“Do you still have reception to your mobile in a tunnel?”
Are you serious? Hallina Mallia.
It seems that you do not own a mobile phone. The only time my mobile phone does not have reception is two or three floors below ground level, in some car park built of solid concrete.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-12-08/local-news/PM-expected-to-receive-shooting-inquiry-report-today-Farrugia-says-he-will-resign-if-implicated-6736126998
As late as ever.
What is of interest now is how and why the crime scene was tampered.
More recordings coming out now
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-12-08/local-news/Marlene-Farrugia-says-good-that-has-been-done-should-not-be-buried-by-dirt-Malta-needs-to-be-clean-6736127000
The government is not creating a phone call, it could be replacing the original by a fake one.
The bullet holes were seen by everyone so the government could not ‘erase’ the shooting.
What happened to the video taken on a phone by witnesses in the street?
Was it given in as evidence or was this also taken and conveniently deleted?
It looks like Kurt Farrugia is ready to walk the plank for this. But he does not realize that if he goes, then the PM must go too as his orders come form the PM and even if he acted alone, he has jeopardized the post of the PM.
We now know all about the shooting.
What is not quite clear are the deals that were taking place before and those that took place after the shooting.
It is quite odd that if Sheehan knew that Manuel was at Police GHQ, because he must have driven him there, why on earth did he tell the officer at the control room that the minister was in the car with him.
Conversely, if the minister was at police GHQ the officer at the control room should have told Sheehan :
“Liema ministru? Il-ministru Mallia hawnhekk qieghed mal-kummissarju”.
The mind boggles.
I am looking forward to the three retired judges unravelling this almighty mess.
I sincerely hope we will not be presented with a Hutton-style report.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/47192/thats_no_way_to_treat_journalists_simon#.VIV-vtLF9mM
I see it’s touchy feely Labour again, so Busuttil can be brusque.
Can’t have that can we, not with that slob of a PM at a loss how to handle the Leader of the Opposition.
And do people have to die before this one comes to her senses? Honestly, the indifference to context makes her sound like some Laburista hadra posing as a switcher.
[Daphne – She IS a Laburista hadra posing as a switcher. Remember Philip Muscat, one of the worst Mintoffian ministers in the early 1980s? That was her blood uncle. Josanne’s parents dragged the family back to Malta from California in the Golden Years of Labour, when the place was a ruin and Uncle Philip was a minister. Now why would they have done that, when anybody in their right mind would have stayed well away. Josanne is one of those people who were raised as a Mintoffian but whose life experiences and personal preferences then came into conflict with those values and ideas. But the Mintoffianism wins out in the end, even if they have to keep it secret to be socially acceptable to their new circles and in general.]
Prosit tar-ritratt, Daphne. Wicc il-ministru qisu bott fazola ser jixpakka…bin-nervi li ghandu.
It now seems that Mallia was at police GHQ after all.
Sheehan must have lied when he said before that the minister was with him in the car.
The man was out of his mind.
He should never have been entrusted with a firearm.
There could have been a bloodbath.
Now I get it. As the telephone conversation between the police, Sheenan and Kurt Farrugia was staged very late in the evening, then they had time to interrogate Smith and establish that he is Scottish – that’s why they refer to him as ‘l-Iskocciz’.
This ‘messanxena’ was staged purely to mention the ‘warning shots’ thus freeing Kurt from all this mess – OK SIEHBI.
[Daphne – How would they have established he is ‘Scottish’. Would a police interrogation of an Italian citizen establish that he is a Lombard, especially if he was brought up in Malta from early childhood and Maltese-speaking? Come off it.]
Oh what is this with you? When something happens you pretend the involved people to shut themselves inside, put their heads between their hands, and start tearing their hair, crying, making a depressed face, or retire in a far away convent. Three years ago it was the then Foreign Affairs minister Tonio Borg, who was caught red-handed buying in a Sliema shopping center when our southern neighbours were tearing themselves apart. How disgraceful of him!
Normal people have a life, and they let it go on as far as they can. Anything less than this is defeatism at best, and fixation at worse, the start of psychological problems, where people start to take things irrationally to heart. People like this should be nowhere near politics or even professional life. These are people with resentments.
You are either doing this for effect and propoganda, granted, or you truly believe that these two people should still lock themselves up due to something that happened 3 weeks ago. In the latter case, well….actually I do not wish it is the latter.
[Daphne – Get a grip. People like you only have a place in a democracy precisely because it is a democracy. You are completely irresponsible and pea-brained.]