“Oqogħdu hemm, my beloved subjects”: Michelle Muscat and AFM deputy commander + family barge entire queue for Gozo ferry tonight

I received the following email and photograph at nine o’clock tonight.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. We’ve been waiting over an hour to cross the Gozo channel. All of a sudden these two cars came down a different lane and ended up first in line. The black car is being driven by Michelle Muscat. In the second car accompanying hers there is a family, but I can’t recognise them.

Five minutes after these photographs were uploaded, I was informed by a member of the Armed Forces of Malta that the silver VW Bora with UTD 018 plates belongs to his deputy commanding officer, Mark Mallia.

Mallia was promoted three times through the ranks in a little over three weeks by the incoming Labour government in 2013, to be made deputy commander while the Sandhurst-trained incumbent was forced out.

The army deputy commander’s personal relationship with the prime minister’s wife gives us a clearer idea of why he involved her in this meeting a few days before Christmas, a meeting which made the headlines across the media because it was so inappropriate.

While Mrs Muscat was in Gozo, her husband was in Serbia, watching waterpolo. So we are given to understand that Armed Forces of Malta Deputy Commander Mark Mallia, who appears to be Michelle Muscat’s family friend while Armed Forces of Malta Commander Jeffrey Curmi – who previously dealt with explosives importers – is her husband’s, was very kindly looking after her together with his family while the prime minister was away.

Armed Forces of Malta deputy commander Mark Mallia (at rear of picture), close friend of the Spouse of the Prime Minister, relaxes in a rooftop Jacuzzi with his father Joseph.