Crime and punishment

Charles J. Buttigieg condemns the political violence committed by supporters of the Malta Labour Party but he immediately spoils everything by attributing the violence to "criminals disguised as Labour supporters" and by embarking on a pathetic attempt to besmirch the Nationalist Party with all the violent crimes that were never solved during the MLP administration.

It suited the MLP not to solve these cases so that they could be blamed, dishonestly, on Nationalist sympathisers. The most glaring example would be the murder of Nardu Debono inside the police GHQ itself. The crime could not be properly investigated then because the rigged statements of police officers had been naïvely accepted. The Commissioner of Police of the time had eventually been convicted as an accomplice in the man's death.

Mr Buttigieg also needs to be reminded that the submachine gun used to spray PN clubs and to kill Raymond Caruana was the same one which was later planted by the police themselves in the farmhouse of Pietru Pawl Busuttil in a despicable attempt to frame that innocent person with the murder of a fellow PN supporter.

Only a prejudiced and gullible person could ever believe that "criminals disguised as Labour supporters" were responsible for the unpunished and unremitting political violence of those days. I was the police medical officer at that time with a clinic adjacent to the Other Ranks Mess at the police general headquarters. I can vouch that those "disguised criminals" were well known Labourites who had the run of the place, that they were untouchable, that most policemen who were not in the Security Branch feared them and even a Commissioner of Police found it difficult to curb their rowdy behaviour!

Mr Buttigieg should be grateful that the MLP provided him with a Tribunal Against Injustices. Nationalists were not so lucky. I was the victim of a crude frame-up designed to secure my dismissal from the post of police medical officer. There was a horrifying conflict of evidence in the sworn testimonies of the prosecution witnesses from the Security Branch. The Public Service Commission rejected the recommendation that I should be dismissed; nevertheless I was forced to retire "on grounds of public interest" and without the hassle of following the established procedure.

Of course there was no Tribunal Against Injustices to whom I could appeal; quite the contrary! As soon as I protested the illegality of the whole procedure the PSC Disciplinary Regulations were immediately revised so as to make it impossible for me to seek justice in a court of law.

My attempt to "challenge" the Commissioner of Police to take action for perjury against my main accuser was countered by threats in open court to haul my witnesses before the PSC if they dared to disclose in a public court of law the evidence which they had given under oath during the secret hearings of the PSC. The "challenge" case was promptly adjourned, supposedly sine die. A few days later judgment was read out by the presiding magistrate, not in open court, but in the privacy of his chambers and in my absence because that "sitting" was never notified to me.

That is the kind of judicial morality which was prevailing at the time and about which Mr Buttigieg is so smugly self-complacent.

About 12 years later, when the PSC was no longer the pawn of the MLP, I was completely vindicated, my "forced retirement on grounds of public interest" was declared to be a gross miscarriage of justice and I was reinstated.

I incurred the displeasure of the MLP simply because I had carried out my medical duties justly and without fear or favour. That was unacceptable to the MLP stalwarts in the police force. They expected me to differentiate between policemen of different political affiliations. They expected me not to look after the health of serving policemen who were being hounded by their superior officers because of their political beliefs. They expected me to issue medical certificates of injuries so worded as to bolster their trumped up case of violence against newspaper photographers and reporters. Instead I issued medical certificates which I would be able to confirm under oath in any court of law.

This letter is an abridged answer to Mr Buttigieg's challenge to "Mr Demicoli & Co". It illustrates the reality behind the "kindness, justice and true Christian principles" of the Maltese brand of socialism as it was practised in Malta at that time.