Translated transcript of the deputy Labour leader’s ‘cocaine at the club’ conversation

Toni Abela (left) with Labour candidate and Joseph Muscat’s good friend Edward Zammit Lewis

I’ve translated it for the benefit of those who don’t know Maltese.

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We had a case of one man…the president of the (Labour Party) club, a trustworthy man, told me what he’d seen.

They found a man in the club kitchen – they didn’t even know what had been going on – he was cutting up a white block. This is true.

(Change in tone, as though Abela has turned to somebody else )

You know about this, don’t you? Maybe at the time you and I were not as on the ball as we are now. I had spoken to you about it.

I brought the (club) president over to make a declaration, and that same day I threw him out.

(Abela clarified in a newspaper interview yesterday that it was the barman, and not the club president, who he threw out. Yet this is not what it sounds like – it sounds like a reference to the club president.)

I told him, what do I do, mate? (Ghidtlu, x’naghmel, hi?)

Should I report the matter to the police, which means that you’ll be in trouble?

But we caught them in the act, because even he himself said that he didn’t know what they were doing there.

Because it was he who got hold of the powder and threw it all in the bin.

I told him, you got rid of the evidence, and Jesus knows what will happen if I report the matter to the police.

(At this point somebody interjects and it is not clear what the person says, but Toni Abela replies.)

But I had concrete proof, clear proof.