As far as I know, there has been no attempt so far by local police to investigate the alleged cocaine habit of MEP David Casa. The revelation appeared recently in Malta Today, and is based on a sworn affidavit (which the newspaper claims to possess) signed by a former close aide and senior employee of the MEP in question. Rampant debauchery is mentioned in some detail.
The “unidentified” whistleblower recounts how, on several occasions between 2009 and 2017 and in his presence, the MEP paid six or seven hundred euros in cash for cocaine. This was later shared with friends and aides at two hotels, in St Julian’s and Attard respectively. According to the informant, the MEP was so consumed by the drug that he would often miss important public and private functions.
Last year, exercised as I was by our modern phenomenon of blogging, I wrote an article in which I argued that no one should be able to make incriminating accusations against the Prime Minister (or, for that matter, the Leader of the Opposition) and expect an immediate police investigation followed by a knee-jerk resignation. Today, some 18 months later, I extend that same protection to everyone, Casa included, and will argue again that newspaper reports, even those based on sworn declarations should not automatically involve the police or trigger a resignation. I value consistency – as much in myself as in others.
Such sweeping accusations can have a profound effect on the law. That’s because they short-circuit its due processes and establish dangerous and disturbing precedents. And, after all, this particular whistleblower could have done things differently – i.e. the ‘right’ way. He was at liberty to go to the police, lodge a formal report, and if necessary even request a magisterial inquiry. But he didn’t. So as far as I’m concerned, the police are not duty bound to investigate.
But I was surprised nonetheless. Not so much by the revelations themselves, and certainly not by the inactivity of the police, but rather by the stench of rancid hypocrisy wafting out of some of the reactions (or non-reactions?) from Malta’s very own ‘civil society’. There were no urgent calls from them for Casa’s (or the Police Commissioner’s) resignation; no manic protests outside the depot naming and shaming the Police Commissioner for his inaction, incompetence and ineptitude; no ‘fenkati’ jibes or banana skins. There was absolutely nothing.
Neither did we have to endure regular status updates on social media from armchair critics and rule-of-law experts talking about the red-faced shame of being Maltese, and of how in any other normal democratic country Casa would have immediately resigned and spared us all the drama. It was as if they were not interested in truth or justice as absolutes, but only as concepts they could turn to their own advantage and for their own comfort.
Casa is their hero and there to stay
Indeed, the same people who thought that the Egrant allegations required no further proof to be ‘true’ seem now to have changed their minds. Politics, suddenly, ought to be based on more than mere perception and is no longer above the rules of evidence or courtroom procedure. As far as they are concerned, even if the allegations against him turn out to be true, Casa is their hero and there to stay.
Therefore, while Chris Cardona’s numerous (alleged) sightings in bars and brothels made him unfit for his ministerial role and while Adrian Delia’s pre-politics dodgy client base and outstanding tax bill should have disqualified him from the PN leadership race and made his current position untenable, Casa’s alleged cocaine snorting, as reported by a local newspaper, is the stuff of lies and jealousy, manufactured by Labour’s spin machine and an utter disgrace to the Fourth Estate.
Similarly, the veracity of a Russian whistleblower, a person with a healthy criminal record and more than an axe to grind, was never doubted, even if, prior to absconding from Malta in 2017, she was wanted in Cyprus in connection with an investigation into company theft. But no excuses or allowances have been made for Casa’s close aide: he is simply a vindictive and untrustworthy nobody, a man out of favour and out of employment, in the thrall of his own gambling addiction.
I am willing to wager, however, that if he had made the same declarations about a Labour M(E)P or even a certain Nationalist MP, the reactions would have been very different and no punches would have been spared. And once again, our country, her reputation in tatters, would have been the biggest loser. It would have been crooks and coke-heads everywhere you looked. A heady cocktail of Mafioso corruption and Maltese cocaine.
I’ve never been enamoured of whistleblowers and I’m always somewhat dubious of their motives. But it’s the double standard of the partisan onlookers that irks me most of all.
Labour reactions to the revelations have been muted at best. On the day they surfaced, Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne advised prudence and caution, insisting that there should be due process in lieu of a trial by media. And while I’m sure there were many who found the irony quite delicious, there were many others – on both sides – who have insisted that an individual’s personal life should be off limits.
That, of course, is absolute tosh. If the State wasn’t so interested in the personal life of the man in the street and what he puts up his nose, I should gladly make the same allowance for ‘superior’ persons in public office. But so long as ordinary people are being convicted and their lives and careers blighted for being in possession of drugs, then MPs and MEPs, who after all are our lawmakers, have got to expect (and face) the same treatment.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece