For the first time in Maltese history, politicians will stand in the dock and face corruption and bribery charges today.
It is a momentous day, for all the wrong reasons. Politics should be about the common good. Instead, it appears to have been weaponised by those in power to fatten their own pockets.
Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and others will plead not guilty when they appear in court. They have made it clear they believe the charges are part of a political witch hunt.
It will be the court that decides whether Muscat and friends committed any crimes. That process will most likely take years – the intricate web of companies, bank accounts and email addresses deployed by the hospitals deal key protagonists made sure the transactions are difficult to trace.
What is clear is that the Vitals-Steward deal was a criminal enterprise. Vitals’s own financial controller estimated misappropriation of €26m within the first two years of the concession – and that does not include the millions allegedly taken by her paymaster and others.
Muscat was the man in charge during that time. He was the most powerful man in the country. As he and his supporters note at every opportunity, he was ‘Invictus’. And, yet, he would have us believe he had nothing to do with this sleazy mess.
Was he a naïve, well-meaning man duped by the wolves around him? Was he asleep at the wheel? Was he just a puppet for his childhood buddy, Schembri? Was he just a figurehead?
Muscat, it must be said, seems to have been an awfully unlucky man.
If Muscat knew nothing, he was incompetent. If Muscat knew but did nothing, he was complicit. If Muscat both knew and did, he was corrupt
His trusted men set up offshore structures. His golden passport project was hijacked. The Electrogas power station was tainted. A bank he endorsed was shut down. A university he trumpeted was a white elephant. A hospitals mega-deal he pushed through ended in failure.
And, all along, he was completely clueless. Or so he says.
Now, he is busy feeding followers false flag lines about hospitals investigators claiming he stole €30 million and that the only evidence against him is the testimony of “an Indian”.
The most gullible will believe that. Sceptics will read the inquiry for themselves, or our summaries of its findings, and make up their minds.
Either way, his legacy is destroyed. If Muscat knew nothing, he was incompetent. If Muscat knew but did nothing, he was complicit. If Muscat both knew and did, he was corrupt. That reasoning applies to Schembri, Mizzi and others, too.
The heist played out years ago. The criminal court can determine accountability – it cannot wind back the clock.
What we can do, as a nation, is think hard about what brought us to this precipice.
And it is that which makes Robert Abela’s reaction to all this so sickening.
They have attacked the magistrate who led the inquiry. They slammed the foreign experts who exposed the scam and drew damning conclusions. They stood by Muscat, vocally and literally, leveraging his presence to bring out the vote.
Keep in mind that this magisterial inquiry was not the first indictment of this corrupt deal.
First, the National Audit Office told us Vitals should never have been allowed to bid for the €4 billion hospitals deal in the first place. Then, a civil court ruled, twice that the entire deal was fraudulent and involved government collusion.
Now, a magistrate and foreign experts found criminal fingerprints everywhere they looked.
Abela and his ministers would have us believe the NAO, two judges, a magistrate and team of foreign experts are all out to get them.
At what point will they stop shooting the messengers and blame the people who landed them in this mess?