The government and the Opposition continue to go through the motions but it is still Daphne who continues to dominate the news.
Earlier this week, a tightly-organised joint action by the Police, the Armed Forces and the Secret Service led to the arrest of 'people known to the police' three of whom were later charged with the killing of Daphne.
Revelations kept filtering through, sometimes through the Italian media, detailing how the bomb was set up and then exploded, even to the extent of a possible hiccup, when a mobile phone was found to have no credit, which was later solved, and what one of the accused told his wife just after the bomb had blasted Daphne to high heaven.
This development has changed the landscape considerably. It seems to prove what could have been achieved had the investigative forces been allowed the funds they required. Maybe that is why the police had to content itself with allowing 'people known to the police' to go their way and exhibit all their gains such as luxury cars and yachts without any proven legal means of getting them. Or maybe they use the lack of funds as an excuse for not doing much.
I said the government and the Opposition keep going through the motions but it is still Daphne who leads the dance through the Civil Society Network. The latest was a legal opinion by a British firm of legal experts who pointed out that since one of the most frequent targets of Daphne's diatribes was the government in its many ramifications, the investigation of Daphne's murder by the Maltese security forces could be in breach of ECHR rules as to proper justice.
To which the government replied with an angry statement. The more the government protests, the less its arguments hold water. The Prime Minister said he was purposely very careful in his statement after the Marsa raid so as to avoid a repetition of the Eddie Fenech Adami statement at the time of the arraignment of judges for corruption that later led to their acquittal, but the CNR statement could possibly point to a similar eventuality later on.
Without focusing on the Daphne killing, I think the vast majority of Maltese support ratcheting up the rule of law. We have too many 'people known to the police' around enjoying a sort of immunity, too many criminals openly flouting the law, too many unsolved mysteries and killings, etc.
It has been said that the accused tried to get the best legal minds to defend them but they all somehow declined. But other than in this case, at least as public opinion sees it, too many crimes get their perpetrator a gentle tap on the wrist with a feather, thanks to weak laws, argumentative lawyers and inconsistent members of the judiciary.
Of course justice must be carried out in full respect of the laws and also of the rights of the accused, which is what ECHR insists on time and again.
But CNR's focus, as I see it, is another. Many of Daphne's writings dealt with people in government and the innumerable linkages between them. The focus this past week has been on the three accused and on the rest now on police bail. To get beyond these accused to those who commissioned the murder is still to happen and maybe we will never get to that stage. The risk, if I can paraphrase the CNR statement, is that this last leg will somehow lose track. And that interested persons can find a way of deviating focus.
The Prime Minister has said this week that the day of Daphne's death has been the worst day of his premiership. He's right. The much-reviled Daphne is having the last word. Whatever the Prime Minister's achievements, the gruesome murder will forever mark his time in office, far more than all the other political murders we have had over the years.
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