Times of Malta reports that large kitchen knife used in Mintoff/Popa fight has not been found

The Times of Malta reports this morning that “the large kitchen knife” used to inflict slight injuries on Yana Mintoff and Daniel Mainwaring, and near-fatal injuries to Gheorghe Popa, has not been found.

This key piece of salient information, which should have been in the headline and stand-first, is instead buried towards the end of the news report. It did not come from information presented in court but directly from the newspaper’s own sources with the police, which makes it all the more newsworthy.

It is impossible for a knife used only within the confines of a house and small garden not to be found, so only two things could have occurred here: 1. Yana Mintoff and Daniel Mainwaring disposed of the knife when they left the house to seek treatment at the Paola health centre, because they had used it; or 2. an obliging ‘pulizija Laburist’ who was among those first on the scene helped get rid of it regardless of who used it, just in case.

The fact that the knife is missing is in direct conflict with the reported assertion of the court expert, who is a specialist in forensic medicine and not a police investigator and therefore qualified to speak only about the nature of wounds, that Popa climbed a tree (presumably with a knife gripped between his teeth or carefully tucked into his belt like Sandokan) and stabbed himself up in its branches. This claim was repeated by criminal defence lawyer Joe Giglio, who is acting for Yana Mintoff, though only ‘parte civile’ – her personal interests in Popa’s prosecution – because she is not being prosecuted herself.

Had Popa really stabbed himself up in the tree, the knife would have been lying beneath it or caught in a branch. That missing knife is the biggest warning bell we have so far – and there have been many – that police corruption is at work to save a politician and her son. In normal circumstances, the police arraign everyone when there is a fight, regardless of who is they think might be the victim and who the perpetrator, and let the court decide. This hasn’t happened here and even lawyers are commenting about it.