A statement the three retired judges made can be interpreted as meaning that the inquiry report is actually urging Joseph Muscat to admit it was a mistake to appoint Manuel Mallia as police minister. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

All hail the English language and praised be its bevy of collective nouns! Just google them: a gaggle of geese. A flock of bustards. A congregation of crocodiles. A skulk of foxes. A quiver of cobras. A shiver of sharks. A muse of capons...

A panel of experts. A den of thieves. A posse of police. A simplicity of servants. A bench of judges. An eloquence of lawyers. An obstruction of dons. A cowardice of curs...

A web of spin. A nest of rumours. A rabble of remedies... And now, I suppose, a coven of cover-ups.

In the space of this column, it’s impossible to examine the entire giddiness of allegations concerning Malliagate. However, we can sort out the three kinds of cover-up that have been alleged. It would help to show more clearly what the official, former judges’ inquiry has settled and what remains unresolved.

The first alleged cover-up concerns the messing up of the crime scene – the removal of bullet cases; the moving of Stephen Smith’s car; and the fiddling with the ministerial car, which involve claims of changes of the number plate as well as of the car being washed and, hours later, used by Manuel Mallia.

The second alleged cover-up concerns the official press release issued by the Department of Information. Were its untruths unwitting misinformation or deliberate disinformation? How did information that was evidently untrue to journalists on the crime scene end up in the official statement?

The third alleged cover-up concerns Mallia alone. Once it was established that Paul Sheehan had fired directly on Smith’s car, Mallia distanced himself from Sheehan, saying he barely knew him before he was ‘assigned’ to him as driver. Since then, however, many witnesses have claimed to have seen Sheehan assist Mallia during his 2013 electoral campaign.

And, on her blog, Daphne Caruana Galizia has uploaded a 2011 photo which places them within a few metres of each other.

The inquiry report won’t satisfy the conspiracy theorists

The former judges concernedthemselves strictly with the second alleged cover-up. Their inquiry stops, chronologically, at midnight on November 19, with Mallia overruling his own communications officer, Ramona Attard, who urged a correction of the original press release.

They do not go into what happened between Smith, Sheehan and anyone else on the crime scene since that is the subject of a separate (routine) inquiry and set of court cases.

But, for some reason, neither do they look at Mallia’s behaviour from November 20 onwards – his declarations and his use of the washed ministerial car, which might have contained evidence. That behaviour might, possibly, have shed light on his role in the issuance of the press release and his reluctance to correct it as soon as possible. The inquiry’s terms of reference would have permitted this broadening of scope.

However, the former judges did not consider these issues or, if they did, they do not see fit to mention it. Nor do they mention having considered any phone calls beyond those recorded on the police log, even though evidence has since surfaced (on the police log itself) that Sheehan and Mallia spoke over the telephone, with the minister advising his driver to remain at home.

In writing their report, the former judges were obviously aware that one theory of the events linked all three cover-ups together. The darkest conspiracy theory goes like this: the tampering of the crime scene and the untrue press release were part of the same cover-up; it involved politicians as well as the highest echelons of the police; it was unlikely that all this obstruction of justice would take place simply to protect a hot-headed ministerial driver; so, there must be something more sinister involved...

The inquiry report makes short shrift of this. It says that the tampering of the crime scene seems (as the judicial process is still underway) to have involved only a small coterie of police officers who did so out of personal friendship with Sheehan. Their obstruction of justice was unwittingly aided by the unclear orders of the acting commissioner of police.

However, the untrue press release was unconnected. It was the result of negligence not malice – mainly the acting police commissioner’s. Mallia was a part of it, despite his denials, and therefore negligent. Everyone else acted in good faith.

The former judges do not concern themselves with motives. So we never get to understand how an experienced senior policeman departed from what should have been routine interrogation of a subordinate. Or, indeed, why the press release was released by the DOI and not by the police. Or why the minister, an experienced criminal lawyer, seems to have found nothing untoward in using the ministerial car the following day when other people might have surmised that he was sitting on some of the possible evidence.

Lt. Columbo is not the only person who is always intrigued by behaviour that, on the fateful day, departs from routine. Not, however, this inquiry.

The inquiry does establish that the communications coordinator at the Office of the Prime Minister, Kurt Farrugia, wanted the official statement corrected that very same night.

The inquiry report won’t, thus, satisfy the conspiracy theorists. However, even if the report is exhaustive, as far as it goes, it won’t satisfy others.

If it is true that Mallia’s close connection to Sheehan predates their relationship as minister and driver, then Mallia not only said a blatant untruth in public; he also misled Parliament.

Those are grounds for dismissal. And they should be stated in order to discourage other Cabinet ministers from such behaviour. Still, for some reason, the Prime Minister has been reluctant to raise those issues.

Towards the end, the report has a homily on political responsibility. It has been under-noticed but it deserves publicity.

It is a political comment. It says the doctrine of political responsibility is raised by political parties in Opposition but forgotten by them when in government.

It also criticises the policy of simply calling in the police when a person of trust is accused of wrongdoing. This, the former judges say, is not the behaviour of a true man of honour, who would also own up to appointing the wrong person.

In their sights, these former judges might well have politicians like Tonio Fenech and Lawrence Gonzi. The trouble with their gnomic statement is that, being stated so delphically, it is open to another interpretation: that the inquiry report is urging Joseph Muscat to admit it was a mistake to appoint Mallia as police minister.

ranierfsadni@europe.com