JK Rowling’s Harry Potter features a wizard whose principal ability is to turn himself into an animal. He is a short, pudgy, bald man with monolid eyes and a plump nose, not unsimilar to the animal he can turn himself into: a rat.
His name is Peter Pettigrew.
As a young student at the School of Hogwarts, he hangs around with the cool kids – one of them Harry’s father. He is thought of as a harmless, perhaps not spectacularly bright, loyal friend.
Soon after they finish school, the wizarding world is taken over by the villainous Voldemort, whose insatiable greed for power casts long shadows of darkness and despair all over the land.
Harry is but a baby and his parents are part of the minority resistance fighting the evil wizard operating from a secret location. Only one person is entrusted with the hide-out of the Potters: their faithful friend Pettigrew. But as Voldemort closes in on the Resistance, Pettigrew cowers in fear and instantly betrays their safehouse.
Harry’s parents are mercilessly killed and Pettigrew stands by, idle, as other friends of his are framed for his actions.
Years later, when the truth of his grave dereliction of duty is discovered, Pettigrew whines and whimpers that he had no option.
“I didn’t mean to! The Dark Lord… You have no idea of the weapons he possesses.”
It takes some time for the reader to realise that Pettigrew is odiously treacherous and cowardly. At first, you think of him as perhaps being a mere weakling, wanting to please everyone. But then you start realising that when it came to his own survival, he is unscrupulous.
He is unprincipled in the most pathetic of manners – disliked even by the very man he goes ratting on to.
“Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go,” Voldemort tells him.
Peter Pettigrew reminds me a lot of Peter Grech, Malta’s Attorney General.
The job of an AG is very vague to most of us. In fact, unless we’re lawyers, we’re very unlikely to be familiar with his tasks. Which is a shame, because the duties of the AG should be part of the civics curriculum at school, for it is a constitutional role with some very important functions.
The AG, for example, has the power to start or discontinue criminal proceedings and he leads the court prosecution proceedings in very serious criminal cases like say, money laundering, or a murder or the assassination of a journalist.
And the constitution clearly states that the AG must be independent. Which is why a prime minister cannot fire an AG but can only remove him by impeachment ‒ two-thirds of the members of parliament need to vote him out for “proved misbehaviour”.
Peter Grech is hoping to work for two more years and then retire. But he must not be allowed to do that because he betrayed us all and more- Kristina Chetcuti
Grech has served in the attorney general’s office since 1983, steadily working his way up to the top post in 2010. He is now 63. He is hoping to work for two more years and then retire. But he must not be allowed to do that because he betrayed us all and more.
In 2016, Daphne Caruana Galizia revealed that the then prime minister’s best buddies – his chief of staff Keith Schembri and top minister Konrad Mizzi ‒ were among those listed in the Panama Papers as having secret companies to siphon off corrupt money.
Malta’s special finance police unit, the FIAU, investigated and issued a report saying more or less: “Hoy, there’s some hanky-panky going on here. These two are up to some reasonably suspicious criminal activity – seize the computers of Nexia BT, the company which set up the secret companies.”
Err, what should we do, police chiefs asked the AG, who at the time was also the FIAU chairman (!). You would think, he’d bark a “Do. It. Now”. No.
Instead, Grech wrote a note to the police chiefs, saying roughly: “Now, now, there’s no need to be so drastic. It would be highly intrusive wouldn’t it to peak into the private business of the top people in the country, even though they are public people paid from our taxes? You don’t want to risk getting into legal trouble, do you? That would be counterproductive too, wouldn’t it? And plus, the FIAU is saying that this is ‘reasonably suspicious’ not ‘highly suspicious’ so I think you’re not entitled to take action.”
Grech wrote this flippant note in the context of an international world shocked and rocked by the Panama Papers scandal. Prime Ministers and ministers the world over were dropping like flies. He also wrote it in the context of a Muscat-led government dehumanising the Maltese journalist who first uncovered it.
The police chiefs – even because it suited them – took up his advice. Nexia BT were left in peace to shred their documents and delete their servers; and Mizzi and Schembri were left in peace to pocket €5,000 a day.
With that note – a blatant dereliction of duty if ever there was one – Grech threw away the last semblance of justice to the bins.
He did not even have the decency to resign after Daphne was assassinated, despite repeated calls.
But then again, the conscience of one who is cowardly and treacherous does not understand atonement.
Grech betrayed his constitutional role, his integrity and his fellow countrymen and all the while, he’s only been thinking of his survival.
To quote Harry Potter: “If you made a better rat than a human, it’s not much to boast about, Peter”. In the end, Peter Pettigrew met his end choked by his own hand. This is what’s happening to Peter Pettigrech.