The sensational report that a video of former Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta, the husband of popular Gozo Minister, Justyne Caruana, had been discovered on the cell phone of Yorgen Fenech – the alleged mastermind in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia – has had wide and serious ramifications on two major fronts.
The first has been the manner in which the new Prime Minister, Robert Abela has dealt with the issue.
He immediately demanded, and received, the resignation of his Gozo Minister, whom he had only appointed to the post a few days ago.
The convention of ministerial responsibility is not often invoked in Malta and, indeed, it could be said that Joseph Muscat’s reluctance to exercise it in the case of Keith Schembri and his close ally in government, Konrad Mizzi, following disclosures in the Panama Papers, led to his downfall three years later. The principle of ministerial responsibility is a fundamental convention of our parliamentary democracy.
It is a convention that depends on its observance for its validity and credibility. Dr Abela has clearly learnt from his predecessor’s grievous mistake in this regard. The fact that he has shown the decisiveness and steel to wield the knife by removing Dr Caruana from her ministerial post, bodes well for the positive signal it sends that from now on only the highest standards of conduct will be tolerated from members of his government.
The second significant impact has broader consequences, which are more serious given the lack of confidence in the way the previous Police Commissioner (whose resignation was also accepted by Dr Abela last week) had conducted the investigation into Ms Caruana Galizia’s murder. It opens up complex questions about the conduct of the police investigation over the last 27 months.
The video which has been downloaded by experts from Europol showed the purpurported close relationship between former deputy police commissioner Silvio Valletta – who had overseen part of the investigation into the car-bomb killing of Ms Caruana Galizia – and Mr Fenech during a trip to London to watch a football match a year after her murder.
At that stage, Mr Fenech had already been identified as a person of interest in the murder probe, although Mr Valletta claims he had not known of Mr Fenech’s involvement in the case at the time – and had stepped down from the murder investigation three months earlier, in June 2018.
Although Mr Fenech was arrested and charged with his involvement in Ms Caruana Galizia’s murder two months after Mr Valletta retired from the police force, the evidence from the video of their close relationship leaves a number of disturbing questions unanswered.
What were the relations between members of the police force – specifically, but not only, Mr Valletta – and Mr Fenech? Was the police investigation and the evidence against Mr Fenech vitiated in any way by Mr Valletta’s relationship with him?
How much of a part did Mr Valletta’s role as a member of the FIAU board play in the revelation at around the time of the trip to London that Mr Fenech was the owner of 17 Black? Was Mr Schembri involved in any way?
These are questions to which the public demands answers from the Attorney General and the new Acting Police Commissioner if Malta’s bruised confidence in the rule of law is to be restored.