Prime Minister finally forced to admit that chief of staff is “undergoing treatment”

The Prime Minister has been forced to admit that his chief of staff, Keith Schembri, is seriously ill and “undergoing treatment”, and that he has not been going in to the office. The treatment in question is chemotherapy, which can do nothing to the sort of tumour he has, but may, in rare cases, prolong life marginally.

The Prime Minister’s defensive oral statement, however, is typically composed of attack, and flinging words about that he hopes will confuse the issue. His chief of staff is “alive” he said (nobody has claimed that he’s not) and “kicking” (clearly not, because he’s too ill to go in to work).

Listen to his angry and defensive tone in this video, and watch his facial expression.

Schembri has “not abandoned his duties”, the Prime Minister said. Nobody claimed that he has. ‘Abandoning’ your duty is not at all the same thing as being too ill to fulfil it.

Meanwhile, I can report that Schembri is nowhere near being able to return to the office in his condition. He has been off work for the last couple of months. And he has issued no statement himself: that is a crucial point which must not be overlooked or obscured by the Prime Minister’s aggression.

It cannot be emphasised enough that the Prime Minister has, for the last two months, hidden his chief of staff’s illness and absence, and was forced to grudgingly admit to it, while still trying to hide as much as he can, after this website broke the news and it became the talk of the country.

Keith Schembri, who always preferred to operate in the shadows, hit the news this year when it was revealed that he has several secret companies in offshore jurisdictions, including those which predate his government position and which are used to illegally strip his Malta businesses of profits.