“I have news for the lying Daphne Caruana Galizia… you have no way out,” Keith Schembri tweeted on April 15, 2017. Weeks later, Caruana Galizia was blown up. We know now that Caruana Galizia was not lying. Keith Schembri was. And still is. Brazenly.
As Schembri faces criminal charges, he is cornered. He is hitting out desperately, blaming and attacking everybody and anybody – the magistrate, the ‘establishment’, court experts, Simon Busuttil, The Shift News. But also seeking pity for his plight. Labour is obliged to him – he expects the party to defend him.
In a cynical, long-winded Facebook rant, Schembri launched a pre-emptive strike appealing to the emotions. He exploited his own parents, his employees, their children, even his own children to elicit sympathy.
Apart from the loyal core, one of who likened Schembri to Jesus Christ persecuted for his innocence, nobody empathised. The party he “loves so much” and its leadership were silently conspicuous. Nobody’s buying Schembri’s sob story.
Schembri’s despair clouds his judgement. He blithely conjures fantasy and fairy tale and inverts and distorts the truth. His appeal for pity and gratitude is laced with subtle threats and intimidation.
What is Schembri scared of? Surely, he must be reassured that the institutions are working. He must know that justice is blind. He knows truth will prevail. The honest have no fear.
But Schembri, when at the peak of his power, adhered to Machiavelli’s maxim: “Better to be feared than to be loved.”
Alas, that fear has turned to anger as his power dissipates – he is left to drown by his party. All those who feel they were swindled, coerced, abused, threatened and cheated by him are waiting fervently in the wings to claim their pound of flesh, not least his former friend, Yorgen Fenech.
The merciless titan, with his insidious control of all government contracts and direct orders, confessed that, on retiring, he felt entitled to “live my life and enjoy some of what I denied myself in 11 years of service to the Labour Party”.
Stop abusing and damaging your party, the government and your country- Kevin Cassar
Instead, Schembri claims, he, his family, his parents and his children are being “politically persecuted”. He laments that his daughter had to inform him the police were at the door. He solicits our sympathy for his arrest, strip-search and 14-hour detention. He pulls on the heartstrings as he relates the story of his frozen assets. His repeated interrogations at the police depot are bandied to earn commiseration.
He then launched into a tirade of false accusations. His particular genius recasts himself, the wealthy all-powerful domineering chief of staff, as the oppressed victim. The two inquiries on his money laundering, one involving Brian Tonna, the other Adrian Hillman, found he had committed “no crime”, he claimed.
He is being persecuted because he is a Labour boy, son of working parents, raised in a Cospicua government property who managed to “build bridges” with Times of Malta. He is being “eradicated” because he engineered “the great wins of 2013 and 2017”.
The magistrate’s lethargy was suddenly transformed into huge energy to conclude the inquiry, Schembri claimed. She completed in a few weeks what she had not done in four years. He attacked the court expert and attempted to taint her reputation. He shamelessly called the inquiry conclusions “completely wrong” and a “travesty of justice”.
But, worse still, he ascribes malice to the magistrate, claiming that the conclusions did not happen by chance. Behind them is a “hidden hand intended to harm government and Labour”, he alleged.
And the conclusions are dangerous for those in business, for hard working entrepreneurs and professionals and for the whole nation.
Schembri attempts to fuel our outrage against the inquiry and the magistrate. The only outrage felt is towards his treachery and duplicity.
Schembri crookedly claimed: “I wish that the moment when I can clear my name will arrive.” That moment arrived in 2019 but Schembri sneaked away. When the 17 Black libel case came before the court, he attempted to delay by requesting the magistrate, Victor Axiak, to recuse himself. When the magistrate refused, he asked not to give testimony.
There was his chance, to prove his innocence to the world. But Schembri demurred. When the magistrate ordered him to face cross examination, Schembri gutlessly dropped the case.
That was not his only chance to clear his name. He repeatedly refused to answer journalists’ questions. He denied knowledge of 17 Black or its owner, only to have to admit 17 Black was one of his ‘business clients’ and that he knew well who the owner was.
When he was arrested as part of the criminal investigation into the murder of the journalist, Schembri had ample opportunity to clear his name. Instead he lost his phone.
When he deviously passed on documents to his doctor, Adrian Vella, to hand to Fenech, he vehemently denied he ever did so. But Vella confirmed that Schembri had called him to collect the documents incriminating Chris Cardona in the murder and that he dutifully passed them on to the alleged mastermind.
“Find someone to kill Daphne,” Schembri allegedly told Fenech. The latter testified that Schembri wanted her dead because she was too much trouble.
On the day of Melvin Theuma’s arrest, Schembri called Fenech on Signal 30 times. From information obtained from Fenech’s mobile phone, Police Inspector Kurt Zahra revealed that Schembri was communicating with Fenech: he was keeping him updated on the ongoing murder case. Schembri even sent Fenech a copy of the Theuma draft pardon, according to the testimony.
So when Schembri pleads he wishes to “find a way of helping the people who are in real need” there is one answer. Stop lying, playing the martyr, manipulating the public. And find your phone. Stop exploiting your employees, your family and your children. Stop abusing and damaging your party, the government and your country.
Be a man for once and own up. That would certainly help people in real need.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery and former PN candidate.