At this stage I don’t believe there is anybody remotely sentient who does not see now that Manuel Mallia was an accident waiting to happen, whatever his or her political views. Some of us would go even further than that and say that Mallia was a time-bomb ticking away to the hour of explosion, at which point he would either blow himself up or blow up Muscat’s government. In the event, he might well have done the latter only we don’t know the full extent of it yet. One is left with the unshakeable feeling that the Wednesday night shoot-out has lifted the lid just a crack on a vast can of slithering worms that we sort of suspected existed, but were not quite sure in what form or fashion.

We are still not sure. But most of those who have been observing, narrowly or otherwise, the developments of the last three weeks are simply unable to take things at face value. Too much does not add up. People who should be talking are not talking. People who the government would like to stay silent are talking, or at least furnishing the press with leaked telephone calls and with eyewitness accounts. We know for a fact that there is even video footage out there of the stand-off between Paul Sheehan and Stephen Smith, taken by two women who were out walking their dog. We know this because they told the inquiring magistrate that a man had tracked them down and demanded that they hand it over.

This man is thought to be Inspector Gabriel Micallef, head of the Drug Squad, who was not acting in an official, authorised capacity. The women picked two men out of a police line-up: Inspector Micallef and another one. We were informed that Inspector Micallef is now on forced leave, but this has not been officially confirmed and a couple of days ago he was seen at Police Headquarters. Inspector Micallef’s sister is in a relationship with Paul Sheehan. He is also suspected of illicitly removing spent cartridges from the scene of the crime. He has not, however, been charged or arraigned in court. Comparisons must therefore be made with the way Sergeant Lee Roy Balzan was charged amid a swirl of press drama and arraigned under arrest, accused of perverting the court of justice by deleting part of Stephen Smith’s arrest report (it was then recovered). Sergeant Balzan is currently held on remand.

Comparisons must be made, too, with the manner in which Acting Police Commissioner Ray Zammit has got away with it. The general attitude seems to be that he was the fall guy, the one who has been made to carry the can along with his cousin the (ex) Police Minister. But that is not how it is at all. Zammit was assistant police commissioner and when Peter Paul Zammit was removed from the post of Police Commissioner, he was asked to take over temporarily as acting Commissioner. What has happened is nothing but a demotion. Strictly speaking, it is not even that. Ray Zammit has simply returned to his previous post as assistant commissioner after filling in for a while as acting Police Commissioner. Now Michael Cassar has been sworn in as Police Commissioner, and he is not ‘acting’.

 

If Ray Zammit was considered unfit for the role of acting Police Commissioner because of the ‘gross negligence’ indicated in the three-retired-judges inquiry report, then how does this ‘gross negligence’ make him fit for the role of assistant commissioner? The man should have been thrown out of the force summarily, or at the very least subjected to disciplinary proceedings as more junior officers have been made to go through for far, far less. His position makes his misdeeds more serious, and not less so, than those of any junior police officer. Going by the information that is publicly available, there are even grounds to have Assistant Commissioner Ray Zammit charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, but we are now in a ridiculous situation where he would have to be charged by one of his subordinates, and that is obviously not going to happen. Will Michael Cassar, the new Police Commissioner, take action against his assistant commissioner Zammit now? Or was not taking action against him a precondition of his being offered the top job?