When his Agriculture minister Anton Refalo told Italian journalists that he did not know who Toto Riina was, Robert Abela leapt to his defence. And what better way is there to protect your embattled Minister then by attacking "the PN administration between 1987 and 1993" with some choice calumny.

"The PN administration allowed Riina to come in and out of the country freely and without restrictions between 1987 and 1993," the Prime Minister claimed. Abela implied that the Maltese government at the time gave Riina permission to enter and leave the island as he pleased.  That's not just a malignant lie, it's reckless irresponsibility. This is a man who cannot control his own tongue to save himself. Abela's devious and damaging fictional narrative reveals the infantile impulsiveness and the petty partisanship of the man trusted to lead this country. But then that's hardly surprising.  This is the same man who accused the grieving children of Daphne Caruana Galizia of having a mission to disrupt the investigations into their own mother's assassination, an accusation he later retracted.  He also condemned them for having the "audacity" to complain about the hostility of the Labour government against them even as he heaped more hostility upon them.

If the leader of the party can be so vile as to make such false and unsubstantiated claims about former administrations, it's little wonder that his media machine spews out its own daily dose of slander and calumny. We've come to expect such levels of vileness from Neville Gafa or even Ricky Caruana, but from the Prime Minister?

ONE news enthusiastically reported the Labour Party's cynical official statement repeating and amplifying Abela's claims:  "Under a PN government, the Italian mafia and its boss were hiding in Gozo and entered and left the country without any difficulty - Malta became their backyard".  Abela's Labour party claimed that a PN government chose to ignore reports that the Italian mafia was in Gozo and refused to investigate the matter. Without a hint of irony, the Labour Party statement commented that "these questions require an answer from those who remain silent about a scandal such as this, but are the first to harm our country outside our shores".

Labour thought it could get away with those lies. Robert Abela wagered that "the PN administration from 1987 to 1993" is no longer in a position to contradict his lies.  But Labour and its leader didn't count on Louis Galea, the social policy minister at the time.  Galea categorically denied Labour's false claims and rubbished Abela's reckless nonsense  He insisted that "There is no evidence that the Maltese government was ever aware of Toto Riina using any hideout in Malta or Gozo during the period you are referring to, nor that any Maltese authority had any indication of his presence here at the time".

"Had there been any indication that a fugitive of Riina's stature was in Malta, the authorities would have taken immediate action and worked closely with Italy to ensure his arrest and return," Louis Galea added.  He pointed to the "strong and trusted partnership with Italy" in security and intelligence matters and the strong "cooperation" between the Italian and Maltese authorities which was "constant and effective". Malta, Louis Galea politely pointed out, used to be a country which pursued criminals not actively protected them.

Just four days after Robert Abela accused the PN administration of allowing Riina free passage in and out of the country, Arnold Cassola revealed that Abela's government had given Toto Riina's son-in-law, Antonio Ciavarello, a Maltese residency card and VAT number while he was a wanted man in Italy and subject to two European Arrest Warrants.

Antonino "Tony" Ciavarello was convicted of fraud and other offences.  A European Arrest warrant was issued for him in January 2022. Yet Ciavarello was working in Malta as a driver with a construction company based in San Gwann. He was residing in Mosta despite having been condemned to two years in jail, a 100,000 euro fine and a further 8 months imprisonment. Ciavarello was only arrested in February 2024 on the insistence of Italian police. Does that imply that Robert Abela was allowing the convict Ciavarello free passage in and out of the country?  Does that mean that the Labour administration ignored two European arrest warrants?

Abela has every opportunity to reply to those questions.  Momentum has asked the Prime Minister one simple question - "How was an individual subject to an international arrest warrant (actually two) not only able to remain at liberty in Malta, but also to obtain official documentation and operate a business?"

Hopefully Abela will spend as much time answering Momentum's question as he spent denigrating and smearing a previous administration from the 1980s. Hopefully his answers will be slightly more

credible than his minister's answers to RAI 3's Lo Stato delle Cose. "It's none of your business" doesn't quite cut it.  Nobody is swallowing Refalo's claim that he doesn't know who Toto Riina was.  "I mind my own business", Refalo claimed.  He knows nothing. He doesn't know when he bought the house, then he claims he rents it. Then he claimed he's no longer renting it but he's still occupying it because nobody's kicked him out, which makes him a squatter despite owning more than 27 properties. He even claimed he wasn't sure when he got married. Nobody believes Anton Refalo. And nobody is really expecting any answers from his boss Robert Abela, at least not honest sensible answers.

The best we can expect is more vitriolic insolence and puerile pettiness. Labour's reaction to Anton Refalo's latest mess was its usual one - a hostile assault on the opposition.  Labour denounced the "coordinated attack" against Refalo accusing the Nationalist Party that it "remains hostage to its extremist faction". The PN didn't produce that RAI 3 programme, it wasn't the one publishing Refalo's incredibly dodgy and evasive answers.  That was RAI 3.  But that didn't stop the Labour Party accusing "the PN and its extremist faction" of trying to "twist the truth". And it certainly didn't stop Robert Abela lashing out against the PN administration from the 1980s with his false and malignant assertions.

There was another Prime Minister, a certain Victor Orban who indulged in such cynical false accusations against the opposition - and where is he now?