Joseph Muscat, Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of the Republic of Malta, a state within the European Union despite the best efforts of Muscat's predecessors and of Muscat himself, and a state governed by the Rule of Law, despite the best efforts of some of Muscat's predecessors, has declared publicly that an individual convicted of particularly disgusting offences is a hero of his party and a "soldier of steel".

Cyrus Engerer, the criminal of whom I write, used stolen pornographic images of his former lover to try to discredit this man, abused of the trust of a friend and the public communication system to do it (on the same lines that child pornographers use to pursue their revolting ends), and in Court apparently tried to coerce the lover into withdrawing the charge, by asking his lawyer, who seems to have accepted to do this, to push for the exposure of even more embarrassing images.

For this, Engerer was given a two-year suspended jail term.

Please note, if you hadn't already, that this was not a political offence, it was a sordid, vengeful piece of pettiness that had it been perpetrated by a private individual would, for all that it remains disgusting, have been just one more sad episode in a sad life. Of course, had the same things been done by a politician in the Nationalist camp, the sky would have fallen in, the Gay Rights Movement would have moved heaven and earth for his or her immediate execution and Muscat would probably have tried to get the Pope to intervene, but no, this was a Labour politician and a Switcher to boot, so he is no longer a criminal but transmogrifies into a persecuted Soldier of Steel, on whose neck all must fall and weep in sympathy.

Engerer, a convicted criminal, was greeted at a Labour event like a returning hero, a Mandela walking the Earth again. According to Muscat, Engerer was not to be considered a criminal but a victim, someone who had been illegally prosecuted and wrongly convicted, because of his political convictions and for no other reason.

This, not to put too fine a point on it, is utter rubbish and worse, rubbish put about by someone who should know better but who has clearly subordinated every rule of behaviour to the supreme imperative of he and his ideas coming out on top all the time and every time.

Words when used by Joseph Muscat have long ceased to respect their real meaning: George Orwell would be proud of him and I don't mean that in a nice way. Consider only the fact that Joseph Muscat on Saturday called Cyrus Engerer a "gentleman" (I suspect that the English-language media translated this from ragel or irgulija but the point stands).

Engerer is no gentleman, he is a sordid little bully whose conscience seems to allow him to do what he likes, when he likes. Engerer committed serious crimes, crimes that in other jurisdictions would have seen him slammed into jail. He was not prosecuted for disseminating political opinions that do not meet with the approval of the regime, that was a fate reserved for people like Michael Frendo, prosecuted in the late Seventies by Mintoff's Regime. Engerer was not found guilty of any crime that lends itself to political campaigning but one that involved theft, homophobia, abuse of trust and blackmail, attributes that call for him to be shunned by anyone with a decent bone in his body, not lionised and counterfeited into an icon.

What more needs to be said about the depths to which Muscat and his marketing team have dragged the Labour Party?

The original Soldiers of Steel, the ones who can justifiably evoke shades of religious persecution from the days when the Catholic Church in Malta acted shamefully in their regard, should take Muscat aside and let it be known that he has gone beyond the pale, that he has shamed his party and them, by using this horrid little man in his cheap electoral stunts. Muscat should also be called to order by his own Minister of Justice for undermining the judiciary in his defence of a common criminal: Owen Bonnici, stand up to be counted. Muscat should be called to order by the Gay Rights Movement for standing up for someone who adopted the shameful tactics of the bigoted and the homophobic: Gabi Calleja, stand up to be counted.

Muscat should be called to order, in fact, by anyone who has any respect for truth and justice, words that this morning have had their meanings turned into jokes.