Sant relaunches attack against Pullicino-Orlando

Former Labour leader Alfred Sant this evening renewed his attack on Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando over the Mistra disco case and warned the government that it should face-up to any attempts to blackmail it by virtue of itssingle seat parliamentary majority.

Speaking in Parliament, Dr Sant said no one more than himself knew what it felt like to be blackmailed in a situation of a one-seat majority in the House. But whereas the situation 10 years ago involved somebody who wanted to hold steadfast to a political view, this time was much worse because the person involved wanted to stand by a personal decision which involved deception of the people and corruption.

Should the Gonzi government continue to ignore the issue and tolerate a vitiated presence in the House, it would be blatantly failing its duties to the country and the House, causing the people to lose confidence in Parliament and in politicians.

In his 30-minute speech during the adjournment, Dr Sant said the people being arraigned in court in connection with the Mistra case were, if anything, agents working for somebody else. Therefore, if they were to be arraigned, the promoters of the disco and those who stood to benefit from it, such as the land owner should be similarly held to account.

Dr Sant said that the Labour Party in presenting its case about Mistra had always been careful to have its claims backed by fact. At the risk of the PN finding out that it was investigating this case, it had waited patiently until documents were revealed, even when that came at the end of the electoral campaign.

The evidence presented so far showed clear manipulation of the technical and bureaucratic processes at MEPA for the development permit to be issued against established procedure and precedent.

He had claimed, Dr Sant recalled, that this involved corruption and money changing hands. Maybe it was not a case of wads of cash changing hands in some hidden corner, but the money could be seen in the way the value of Dr Pullicino Orlando’s land shot up when the permit was granted, and in the hundreds of thousands of liri he stood to gain just from renting the land for the disco.

Some might try to believe Dr Pullicino Orlando when he said he did not know the details of the development, but for all level headed persons, this was a very serious case, as serious as the corruption of Appeal court judges.

Dr Sant hit out at Dr Pullicino Orlando for having accused him of having ignored what his family were going through.

Not very long ago, Dr Sant revealed, Dr Pullicino Orlando had phoned him at home, pleading to him to ensure that Super One did not report something which had taken place within his family. He assured him it would not be reported, because the Labour media did not act in that way, although the same could not be said of the PN press.

Dr Sant also referred to purported e-mail exchanges between MLP general secretary Jason Micallef and entrepreneur Kevin deCesare on the Mistra case and insisted they were all false, and Mr deCesare never had anything to do with revealing the case. Significantly, it was Dr Pullicino Orlando who was mentioning these e-mails, in yet another attempt to hide the true facts.

Dr Sant insisted that Dr Pullicio Orlando’s attitude and behaviour were unacceptable in a democracy and it was stupid of him to argue that he had been exonerated, just because the Attorney General and the Police had decided not to press charges in court. Those who were to be arraigned were but agents acting on somebody else’e behalf – the promoters of the disco and the owner of the land and if these agents were to answer in court, the promoters and those who stood to gain from the way the permit was issued should also answer before the people, Dr Sant said.

However one looked at the issue, it stank. This was, above all, an issue of political morality which the Prime Minister, as head of the government, needed to tackle.