Manuel Mallia’s fabulous legacy
I’m not terribly impressed by the fact that Deputy Police Commissioner Pierre Calleja has resigned today. I don’t see it as an indictment of the police force. I saw him as an indictment of the police force.
When I rang him a couple of summers back to ask him to justify his presence on a highly questionable (and fuel-burning) jaunt to a fishing-village in Sicily, on a RHIB owned by one of the Medasia operators, building contractors and fixers who were part of this small flotilla of RHIBs going to lunch together, along with Law Commissioner Franco Debono, he answered his mobile phone hostilely and addressed me in a heavily sarcastic tone of voice which indicated that he was struggling hard not to let flow a volley of vulgar suggestions as to what I should do with myself.
When I insisted on a reply to my question, he went hysterical, and said that where he goes and what he does is his business and not mine. When I pointed out that it is my business and that of the public because he is a very senior police officer, he rang off.
He shouldn’t have been on that jaunt to Sicily on a boat with those sleazy types. And that was just the one time I found out about. There were probably more. You don’t just ask a very senior policeman to join you on a day-trip to Sicily for lunch, on your RHIB, unless you’re pretty cosy with him already.
Incidentally, I rang the Law Commissioner too, that day, to ask him why he thinks it appropriate, in his exalted position, to accept an invitation of that sort from people like that. First he got some female sidekick to answer the phone and pretend he wasn’t there, when she was clearly referring to him. And then when I rang again, he took the phone himself and said, in Hal Ghaxaq style, that where he goes and with whom is his business, orrajt.
He became particularly upset when I asked him whether he thinks they invited him along because he is such wonderful company and such a joy to be with. That didn’t go down well, at all – but seriously, what do these people think?
