By now, everyone has read the news that the Court of Appeal has confirmed the damning judgment of the lower court, but not only. It also added even more context making the crimes perpetrated by ex-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Minister for Energy and Health Konrad Mizzi, Chief of Staff Kieth Schembri, and Attorney-General Peter Grech even more aggravated. The court found that the Vitals deal was not only fraudulent but that both parties, the government and state entities colluded together to make sure that the agreement was excessively in favour of the concessionaire. The court also found that the concessionaire only ramped up its works and obligations much after Chris Fearne had taken over the project from Konrad Mizzi. You can read the full sentence here.ย The court sentence also confirms the irregular manner by which Bank of Valletta provided Steward with a ย36 million in credit and also confirms that Steward has defaulted on this loan.
Let’s put things in perspective. This saga has been ongoing for quite a while having been investigated first by Daphne Caruana Galizia and eventually raised at the PN parliamentary group by Jason Azzopardi who proposed the party to take Joseph Muscat to court over the fraudulent Vitals deal. The case was eventually taken up by Adrian Delia when he was the PN party leader. The police investigator investigating Joseph Muscat over this deal ended up working in one of the entities of the Ministry of Economy run by Silvio Schembri, someone who as of lately, served as a bridge between Robert Abela and Joseph Muscat. The case of this police investigator is just one of the many defections that have been taken from the police and also the attorney general’s office.
Unsurprisingly, Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa has dedicated more resources to the social-benefits racket than to the public hospital fraud because, of course, it is easier to prosecute social-benefit claimants to Joseph Muscat and his criminal gang. Gafa even conducted a wide-scale investigation on the social-benefits racket leading to prosecutions despite the lack of an ongoing magisterial inquiry on the other hand, he restrained himself from prosecuting Joseph Muscat citing the ongoing magisterial inquiry. Yet, Gafa didn’t need a magisterial inquiry to prosecute Joseph Muscat. If the Nationalist Party could take Joseph Muscat to court and win the case, why then, during all this time, this case hasn’t been conducted by the police, instead?
Sincerely, I don’t know how Angelo Gafa can conjure up a reasonable excuse for his cover-ups and the disastrous state of the rule of law in the country. I’m sure that he is feeling a lot of spite towards the man who is doing his job for free.
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