Solve the problem by writing about it yourself, Julia

Karmenu Vella, chairman of the Orange Travel Group and director of online gambling company Betfair

That insufferable whining bore, Julia Farrugia, has gone running, dummy in mouth and with eyes brimming, to the Press Ethics Commission (which has no authority over anyone at all) to complain that Lou Bondi has been mean and nasty to her.

And the Press Ethics Commission has found that yes, indeed, Lou Bondi has been very mean and nasty to Julia Farrugia, who it recently found was very mean and nasty herself to a man called Joe Mizzi.

Apparently, nobody is allowed to mention the FACT that Julia Farrugia’s father, a man known by the nickname Il-Botom, was cabinet minister Karmenu Vella’s driver during the notorious Golden Years. He is no longer his driver as chairman of the Orange Travel Group and director of Betfair.

Nobody is allowed to mention the other FACT that Gianni Psaila, aka Il-Pupa, testified under oath that on the night Raymond Caruana was killed, Il-Botom – driving Karmenu Vella’s ministerial car while Vella was in parliament – was part of the group of men who stopped to shoot at the Tarxien Nationalist Party club before driving on to Gudja to shoot at the club there, which is where Raymond Caruana ended up dead.

I am not saying that this is what your father DID, Julia. I am merely reminding you that this is what Gianni Psaila, one of your father’s best friends, said he did. And he said it under oath.

Of course, Gianni Psaila ended up dead in very mysterious circumstances when things began to hot up after this. And again, I am not saying that there is any correlation between what Psaila said under oath and his ending up dead in a strange situation, but these two entirely separate facts mean that Psaila cannot be cross-examined in the newly reopened enquiry.

Julia has also proceeded against me for reminding people of these FACTS. She filed a civil suit some months ago – complete with cameras filming her tearful eyes and the barely suppressed sob in her voice as she stood on the steps of the law courts, poor bunny – and also asked the police to prosecute me. You know, because they don’t have anything better to do.

You see, the thing she doesn’t get is this. Nobody has suggested that she had anything to do with the shootings that night in 1986 – how could she have done? – or that she is somehow responsible for her father’s alleged actions.

She is not even responsible for the fact that her father, Il-Botom, was Karmenu Vella’s driver (at a time when drivers didn’t just drive but were sort of gatekeepers to the boss).

But she is definitely responsible for the fact that she never revealed this information herself, so that her readers and listeners could put things into context when, for example, she interviewed Karmenu Vella (her father’s boss for so many years) for Saviour Balzan’s newspaper.

She should have avoided conducting that interview herself and got somebody else to do it, and when she insisted on doing it herself, she should have mentioned, because that is the way things should be done, that she’s known him all her life because her father was his driver for years.

In this, Julia Farrugia is no better than her friend Josanne Cassar, who while working for the newspaper I work for carefully concealed the fact that she is a former Golden Years Labour minister’s niece and that her sister is married to Wenzu Mintoff’s brother – all while writing columns of supposedly independently-reached anti-government and anti-PN views.

Julia Farrugia can and should tackle this situation herself, and not by running to the Press Ethics Commission, the police or Toni Abela (wearing his hat as Saviour Balzan’s newspaper’s lawyer).

She should do so by interviewing her father – though, of course, she should tell her readers that he is her father. Or more appropriately, she should commission somebody else to do the interview.