It took roughly 40 minutes to read out all the crimes Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and 11 others stand accused of. Among them: bribery, corruption, money laundering, fraud.

They all pleaded not guilty.

As far as scandals go, this one is as slow burning as they come. Vitals first cast its eye on Malta in 2014. Ten years later, the case is in court. Judging by the pace of other money laundering cases, it might take another 10 for criminal proceedings to be concluded.

Defence lawyers wasted no time in poking holes in the case against their clients, and the numbers were on their side: the decision to charge all 14 defendants together meant that a handful of relatively inexperienced prosecutors were up against all of Malta’s top criminal lawyers, all at once.

The hope is that a case of this gravity is treated with the seriousness it deserves by the attorney general and law courts. The defendants deserve that much; the country does, too.

For as long as this case takes, Malta will remain obscured by its long shadow. And yet, in this most significant day for Maltese criminal justice, the real action was outside the courthouse.

Many of those who demonstrated yesterday will not follow the intricacies of this criminal case. They will not read the inquiry report, which is now public, or hear the legal arguments made by the defence or prosecution. Their knowledge of the case will be limited to social media videos posted by its protagonists, and perhaps the odd news bulletin. 

Not that it matters: judging by their own words, even facts will not sway them.

“He’s innocent, but even if he wasn’t…” one demonstrator told our reporter, expressing sentiments echoed by many others in the crowd. As ADPD’s Carmel Cacopardo noted, the blind adulation was reminiscent of the worship reserved for demagogues like Argentina’s Juan Peron.

It was, inevitably, a heated event, with tensions running high. But it was well managed by the police, who did outstanding work at overseeing the crowd and accompanying journalists as they went about their work.

The reality is that hundreds of people took time out of their day to stand – in the sun, no less – in solidarity with men accused of having robbed them.

The bad apples were there, of course. How could they not be? They cursed at reporters, told them they deserved to be doused in urine, accused them of being out to “provoke” by doing their jobs. They called them ‘liars”, for having dared report what prosecutors allege about their heroes. On a couple of occasions, the aggression came close to becoming physical.

But their intimidation, insults and manhandling of journalists was quickly curbed by other attendees, who quickly moved the bullies away or shouted them down.

The crowd’s self-regulation was probably most evident in the way in which a memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia, just metres away from demonstrators, remained untouched.

Some demonstrators swore as they walked past the memorial, but none dared touch it. Ironically, they treated that shrine better than the Muscat government, which cleared it every night for years, did. 

That the demonstration remained a peaceful one is a relief, though it is a small mercy when looking at the bigger picture.

The reality is that hundreds of people took time out of their day to stand – in the sun, no less – in solidarity with men accused of having robbed them.

People are perfectly entitled to question the legitimacy of an investigation, or to express doubts about a prosecutorial process. There are reasonable questions to be asked about the way in which this probe was handled, from the start to the present day.

But to bray, as many did, in blind support of people accused of having hurt you is nevertheless concerning. Call it a form of political Stockholm Syndrome. It was equally concerning to hear one person after another repeat the line that ‘we’ [the media] are “lying” about the inquiry, or that reporters want to “get into government”.

The media’s reporting is based on what investigators found, and prosecutors concluded, about the hospitals deal. If the media has ‘lied’ about the Vitals-Steward deal being tainted, so too has the National Audit Office and civil court.

This sort of misinformation is the result of Labour’s continued, not-so-subtle campaign against the independent media.

Robert Abela’s recent tilting at windmills has seen him lash out at magistrates, reporters and media organisations. Labour lackeys like Jason Micallef have dutifully followed suit. When people are constantly told that a part of society is the enemy, is it any surprise that they start treating them as such?