This has been quite a traumatic week for us. For many months we grumbled and complained that no progress was being registered in the investigations regarding the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
All we had was the arrest of three people charged with being the material killers. Then, in the last few days, we have learned that there were structures and structures in the plot. From what we now know, there was at least one middleman between the material killers and whoever gave the order to kill the journalist. That is three levels.
The information in the public arena is still incomplete and far from satisfactory. Assuming that Yorgen Fenech was the person who ordered Daphne’s murder is quite incomprehensible. It is true Daphne wrote about the gas power station, Electrogas, the Azeri connection, etc. It is also true that, some weeks before her death, she received a cache of 700,000 emails from inside Electrogas but had not had the time to delve into them.
But Daphne wrote about a myriad other cases, from the Scoglitti link to stolen fuel from Libya, to Minister Chris Cardona’s secret predilections, to Italian Mafia links, etc., each of which could more plausibly make someone sufficiently hot under the collar to order her death.
Yorgen Fenech, then, is not just an individual but also a representative of one of Malta’s foremost companies, with wide-ranging interests and a variety of links and alliances with other leading companies. The investigation would therefore want to ascertain if the diverse levels of the holding had been involved.
Then, too, it may be that Mr Fenech is not the top of the pyramid that ordered Daphne’s murder but maybe shared the top levels with other hitherto unsuspected individuals.
All this is speculation, but it goes to show that there are still many gaps in our reading of the background. There may, for instance, have been more than one middleman. However, this reading seems to exclude the many stories we have been fed over the past months – ranging from the Italian Mafia to Libyan bandits.
Whatever, on Wednesday we were shocked to be told that Yorgen Fenech had been caught as he was apparently trying to escape from Malta. Even this carries within it so many still unresolved questions.
We later learned that he had resigned from all his positions in the Fenech companies. He had been out of Malta for weeks and months. He could have absconded in so many different ways. And when he came out of the Portomaso marina, his transponders were still on. Then someone said that the police had been informed by an unknown journalist that he was trying to escape.
All this inflamed spirits. Occupy Justice and Republika – and other similar groups – had been organising protests on a regular basis, usually on the 16th of the month, with speeches at the Daphne shrine in front of the Law Courts.
This time, said people on the spot, the people in the protest were really angry. From Castille they marched to the Daphne shrine and then they walked out of Valletta. But right at that moment Parliament rose and the members (the Opposition had walked out in protest) came out. The quite natural reaction was that the people rushed to the barriers shouting abuse.
Then Minister Owen Bonnici came out and was told by his minders to head towards Castille. In no time he was surrounded by the crowd, which banged and kicked the car, shouting abuse at the man who reportedly orders the candles and flowers at the Daphne shrine to be removed every night.
Minister Zammit Lewis, who was following, was either luckier or more street-wise for he retreated to the Parliament building and stayed there. Former police inspector and now Speaker Anglu Farrugia has called on the police to identify the rioters and prosecute them.
This was the first time the new Parliament found itself at the centre of a riot and many lessons should be drawn. The Renzo Piano building is purposely all for transparency but in this day and age (see what happened in Hong Kong) it must be made more secure. And Ministers (and the Speaker, as well) must stop this habit of parking their cars just outside the precincts. There are other ways of exiting the House.
The next days were filled by recriminations – and by the Prime Minister who suddenly decided to go back to his journalistic days and provide information on the current state of the police investigations. He had no reason to go there and, considering the entire issue, risks huge issues with conflicts of interest, quite unnecessarily.
People have been commenting on his haggard look in recent days. Ever since he lost whatever chance he had of exiting in glory to some EU post, he has become a prisoner of the Maltese situation. And the assassination of his nemesis, Daphne, has immeasurably complicated matters.
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