Malta has been for some days a mad place. Tuesday was our Watergate (JFK?) moment. And, with ominous symbolism, the lights went out all over Malta.

Angry, sad and caught between so many conflicting emotions, yet not knowing what to think, I didn’t feel like writing. Each day brought a new twist and it was impossible to separate lies from truth. Most of what we know is what has been reported in the media, which isn’t always reliable. But there are things we do know and other things which apparently have been reliably ‘recorded’. 

I decided, in the end, that I would write, so here it goes. 

When Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up by a car bomb in 2017, even before I got around to thinking of who might be responsible, I remember thinking that such a murder under Labour’s ‘watch’ was the worst-case scenario for Joseph Muscat and his government. 

Those crass (or despicable) enough to think this was some champagne cork-popping moment for Labour, or that the government could now breathe a collective sigh of relief, were in for a big disappointment.

Monday, October 16, was the Black Monday to end all Black Mondays – a day that would haunt Muscat and the Labour government for the rest of its days.

From that moment on, the only thing that could surpass that explosive moment in Malta’s history would be the even more explosive discovery that the trail led to the highest echelons of power. We have now reached that hitherto unspeakable possibility.

I knew, of course, that the eyes of the world would be upon us, although I didn’t quite foresee the full impact of international opinion. But as far as our own Malta was concerned, I accepted the politicising of her death as ‘normal’. Daphne was, after all, the most vivid expression of our island’s very partisan way of doing things. 

But I was equally certain that her murder could not possibly have any associations, let alone direct links, with government. This was Castille, not the Kremlin. The political fallout alone made the very idea unthinkable.

Alive, Daphne was less of a thorn in Labour’s side than in death. Her hatred of that party was so extreme that it actually won them a degree of sympathy. In fact, it could be argued that she was a liability to the PN, who came across increasingly as unfairly favoured and under-scrutinised. It is ironic that the woman who tried in vain to destroy the Labour Party in the March 2017 general election and unseat Muscat has done a far better job from her place of rest.

What a terribly sad, shocking, inauspicious ending for a government with the biggest historic majority

In an article I wrote two weeks after Caruana Galizia’s death, I underlined how crucial it was for the case to be handled properly. There would be no room this time for bungling, let alone adding one more murder to the list of unsolved crimes.

It was also patently obvious that those who had a hand in her murder, in whatever capacity, were relying heavily on the immemorial Maltese way of doing things. Let’s be completely honest here: it was only after that fateful day in October 2017 that the phrase ‘rule of law’ entered the national lexicon.

People, previously ignorant, uninformed or simply uninterested, began paying attention to detail and the way our national institutions were (or were not) working.

And I don’t even have to go as far back as the unsolved murders of Karen Grech or Raymond Caruana, which in our tit-for-tat politics are always wheeled out by PL and its supporters. There are far more recent cases which point to institutional failings. Off the top of my head and having done no research, I am able to recall Nicholas Azzopardi, who died in 2008 while in police custody, and Mamadou Kamara and Ifeanyi Nwokaye – migrants who died in 2011/ 2012 while in the custody of detention services and the Armed Forces of Malta. This is to say nothing of the other car bombs which have remained, for the most part, unsolved.

Why?

The question begs another question: whether ‘triangulation’ was ever used prior to Daphne’s murder investigation. A court application that I had personally filed in 2014 when I became the victim of a crime, requesting the nomination of experts to analyse data with the assistance of service providers, was rejected outright, and found no support. 

It was only the arrival of the FBI and Europol three years later which led to a similar request being taken seriously. Which, as we all know now, was the key to unlocking details of Daphne’s murder.

It was on the strength of telephone intercepts that the infamous mobile phone call which triggered the bomb came to light and led to the identification of the first three suspects. When people in the know say that Malta has never seen an investigation quite like this before, they’re absolutely right. Out came all the stops. No expense was spared. 

Reliable rumblings that Caruana Galizia’s murder was linked to 17 Black owner and business mogul Yorgen Fenech were already doing the rounds months ago. But it was the arrest of loan-shark, taxi driver and middleman Melvin Theuma (who has since been given full immunity and a presidential pardon) which upped the ante against Fenech, naming him as a mastermind. Within a week the murder trail snaked its way to the Office of the Prime Minister.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019 will be remembered as one of the darkest days in Malta’s political history – in my lifetime at least.

The first political casualty was the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri, who tendered his resignation before facing police arrest. This was after Fenech’s second request for a pardon in exchange for incriminating Schembri.

At the time of writing, Fenech has since pointed the finger at ministers Konrad Mizzi and Chris Cardona who had already stepped down. Schembri, who has since been released, has denied all Fenech’s aspersions and accusations. Mizzi was never called in for questioning while Cardona was treated only as a person of interest. Both have strenuously denied any involvement.

With his third request for a pardon denied, Fenech turned his guns on Muscat allegedly threatening to implicate him should Muscat not secure a pardon. It has since been reported that he will resign imminently.

What a terribly sad, shocking and inauspicious ending for a government with the biggest historic majority, who could (and should) have had it all, but got a six-year bumpy ride instead, awash in scandals.

People – on both sides of the political divide – are angry, hurt and feel completely betrayed. There is still so much uncertainty but beyond the question of guilt and innocence, of which there are many degrees, one thing sticks in my craw: that a powerful businessman with historical links to both parties is holding a prime minister, his chief of staff and a couple of his ministers to ransom. Clearly because he feels he can. 

This stronghold (and stranglehold) of unelected power is proof enough of an interdependence between politics and private interest that has always been far too close for comfort, to say nothing else. The Labour Party, that worked so hard to shed its old skin, has taken a nosedive and slid back down the chute, taking Malta with it.