With the Perit having passed away quite a few weeks ago, I thought I would recount some encounters I had with him, mostly on the telephone. They are not meant to be demeaning of the man in any way (although I could recount lots of episodes in my life where I had a brush with the man and his acolytes and police forces, many of whom are still slinking around in young Joseph Muscat’s party today). They are just interesting episodes in my curious and nose poking life.
He immediately started to deal out a lot of hogwash about the Mafia plot- Austin Sammut
One fine day, being correspondent for The Times of London, sometime after the Nationalist Party victory of 1987, I received a phone call from the foreign news desk, with the information (which had already begun to permeate local news circles) that Dr Joe Brincat had been arrested in Naples, where he had gone to defend some client allegedly involved in smuggling jewellery of sorts.
I was told that there were reports of Dom Mintoff having called the Italian Interior Minister of the time and asked him to intervene on Brincat’s behalf.
Could I call Mr Mintoff for his comments, I was asked. Oh my God, I thought, that’s a daunting task indeed! But, always out for an adventure, I said I would “try”.
At the time, the Perit was still haunting the Labour Opposition’s parliamentary office on a daily basis – something of which I was aware. So I called Parliament and asked for the Opposition room. After being put through, a brusque tone (I could swear it was Joe Debono Grech but it wasn’t) asked “Who are you?”
I replied courteously, as is the style of most normal people, “Dr Austin Sammut”.
“What do you require?”
“I wish to speak to the Perit” – no need to say more, there is only one Perit. And behold, he was on the line.
“Who are you?”
“Austin Sammut, correspondent of The Times of London”.
It was as if I had mentioned the devil in hell. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said angrily. I said: “I reported I was Austin Sammut”.
“But not of The Times!” he retorted.
Remember that The Times of London had been banned from Malta for some time – rehabilitated by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici after a visit by the legendary Peter Nicholls, Rome correspondent – for writing something Mintoff did not like.
“Let me ask my leader if I can speak to you” – the leader being KMB. At that moment I couldn’t help throwing up my coffee with a hiccup.
Mifsud Bonnici on the line: “Hello Austin, what do you require?”
Can I speak to the Perit” I asked. “Yes, of course” and Mintoff was back in a jiffy. I duly asked whether he had intervened with the Italian Government on behalf of Brincat.
“Let me tell you, my fellow. All this is a Mafia plot.” He immediately started to deal out a lot of hogwash about the Mafia plot to implicate Dr Brincat in this alleged smuggling case. As he was going on, I started to concentrate on my reading and writing. I doubt I had a computer at the time, thanks to him and his anti-technology regim, until thankfully he cut off. Of course, I had nothing to report to my news desk.
Mintoff number two: Some time in 2003 when, for my grave sins, I was chairman of Public Broadcasting Services during the trying times of the EU referendum and the subsequent abrupt general election, I was sitting at my desk one evening when my secretary advised me that she had Perit Mintoff on the line.
Given that there were more than one Perit Mintoff on this blessed island of ours, and also given that I often had a professional relationship with one of the younger ones, I took the call without trepidation.
But I did get a bit cautious when a particularly nasty and aggressive voice came on the line.
“Dottor Sammut?”
“Yes”.
“The Perit will speak to you”.
Then another equally aggressive voice: “Is-Sur Sammut?” “Yes”. “Mela ħa ngħidlek” (“So let me tell you”).
And off he went, ranting about some US warship that had been docked in Maltaand about Front Maltin Inqumu or something or other which he led (and the insignificant Graffiti Movemet, of course) and that had protested but not been covered on TVM.
I stupidly and naively proffered some advice about him notifying the media when he organised some activity, otherwise how would they know.
I had put my foot in it: “Who are you to give me advice?” he began, and he went on and on.
All this was interspersed at times by the intervention of the first aggressive voice telling me to speak to the Perit through him, since he was hard of hearing.
But it was the Perit who ended by shouting “Mela inti għadu tal-poplu!” (“Then you are an enemy of the people”).
At which point I said “Fair enough” and it was I who put the phone down his time, going back to my computer, which by then I thankfully possessed
More to come.