Reader Alert: this copy was submitted for publication two days ago. What I write may be overtaken by the speed of events in this unfolding drama.
Two years ago, Malta was rocked to its foundations when the news broke that Daphne Caruana Galizia had been brutally murdered in a car bomb explosion. Within weeks, three criminals who had allegedly carried out the assassination were arrested and arraigned in court. Indicted last summer, they are about to stand trial.
But overshadowing the remarkably speedy arraignment of the alleged killers, has hung the deep suspicion that there was a ‘Mr Big’, the mastermind, who had commissioned the crime. The hoodlums who had executed the murder were simply obeying orders from somebody whose interests were threatened by Caruana Galizia’s unremitting investigations.
Last week, the meticulous investigative work of the Malta Police Force and the Malta Security Service – working closely with Europol and a number of foreign intelligence services – paid off. The AFM’s Maritime Squadron apprehended a leading Maltese businessman, Yorgen Fenech – described as a “person of interest” in the investigation of the car bombing – as he was attempting to escape from Malta to Italy in his luxury yacht. The suspected ‘middleman’, the go-between between the mastermind and the perpetrators of the assassination, had been arrested a few days before.
The arrest of the alleged mastermind and killers of Caruana Galizia, just two years after the crime was committed, is an outstanding achievement by Malta’s investigatory authorities. For anybody who genuinely cares about justice in this horrendous case – justice for Caruana Galizia’s family who have endured heartbreak and pain, and justice for all right-thinking people in Malta who believe passionately in the rule of law – this was a triumph as well as a catharsis. The Caruana Galizia family welcomed the arrests as “an overdue and important development in the investigation” into the assassination.
It was therefore astonishing to learn that on the evening of Fenech’s arrest, a few hundred supporters of the self-declared “non-partisan” NGO, Repubblika, and the so-called Occupy Justice NGO, assembled outside Malta’s parliament building to protest.
They did not simply protest as is their right. This group of protesters quickly descended into a mob, trapping ministers in their car and hammering on it as they attempted to leave the parliament building. Their behaviour was more akin to rent-a-mob than a body supposedly standing up for the rule of law.
The momentous achievement of local and international detective work to bring suspected criminals to justice has been greeted – perversely – with unseemly mob rule on the streets of Valletta. Despite the alleged assassins and their mastermind being arrested, the protesters have reverted to threats of violence and a return to the 1980s.
Their actions and anti-government rhetoric give the lie to their pretence that their movement is not seeking to overturn the result of the last general election. Yet it is clear that it is the urge to obtain political advantage – not concern for justice or to bring closure on Daphne’s murder – which impels them to act as they do. Their double standards are breathtaking.
To compound matters, instead of congratulating the investigation team on their success, the Opposition walked out of Parliament when, conscious that the sensitivity of any statement he made that evening could prejudice the criminal investigation, the Prime Minister said he had been advised by the investigators that it would be premature to divulge information at that stage. He said he would make a statement soon, or dedicate a full sitting of Parliament to the latest developments.
Malta’s propensity to weave conspiracy theories has gone into overdrive. In the understandable sorrow at Caruana Galizia’s death of those who were close to her, the drama of the last few days has morphed into a neurotic, even hysterical, national anxiety which has unhinged normally sane and intelligent people.
In the immediate wake of these fast-moving developments, there are three issues that must immediately be addressed.
First, the protesters’ contention that the Prime Minister should shoulder political responsibility because “if he had not failed to invite Mizzi and Schembri to resign Caruana Galizia would still be alive today” is a calumny which simply does not stand up to scrutiny. It is a totally absurd leap of logic which relies on a mistaken connection between two unrelated events aimed at blackening the Prime Minister’s name.
Second, and overridingly, the issue which precipitated both the PN walkout and the mob protests outside the parliament building have centred around the Prime Minister’s refusal to sack his chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and his Minister for Tourism, Konrad Mizzi – a political matter which, as said, preceded Caruana Galizia’s death by several months.
Readers of this column will recall that, together with others, I had warned the Prime Minister in October 2016 that he had mishandled the Panamagate debacle (which first exposed Mizzi and Schembri for opening secret companies in Panama very soon after taking up their roles in government). I said that unless he took action to demand their resignations, they would be an albatross around his neck and undermine his authority.
My view is unchanged. Business tycoon Fenech’s arrest and the involvement of Schembri and Mizzi in 17 Black – which is owned by Fenech, and was identified as being one of two sources of income for the two companies set up on their behalf – makes their resignation from government imperative and urgent. No matter how loyal and efficient their service in government, severing Mizzi and Schembri like a cancerous limb is the right ruthless decision for the Prime Minister to take immediately.
Third, although we have had a previous Prime Minister – Eddie Fenech Adami – personally briefing the press in two separate cases that shocked Malta 20 or so years ago, it is vitally important that the Prime Minister leaves such briefings to the autonomous investigatory authorities. For the Prime Minister to involve himself is to risk contaminating the fairness of the imminent criminal trial.
Nonetheless, Joseph Muscat’s reaction to this national crisis over the last few days since the arrest of the alleged mastermind (coming on top of the successful indictment of the alleged assassins) has been an exercise in leadership and example and calm and, above all, authority. He now needs to wield the knife.