Gouder's Gaddafi

'Hail to Gaddafi'

In February, two weeks after the Libyan rebels took up arms or whatever they could find to overthrow the Gaddafi regime, Charlon Gouder ran this news item on Super One. Click - Ir-relazzjonijiet bejn Malta u l-Libja.

Watching it now is surreal. Just six months ago, when the Libyan desert was already reddened with rebel blood, Gouder went into a delirium of Gaddafi glorification, producing a hagiography of Malta's relations with him.

The Libyan dictator is projected as Malta's saviour and benefactor, the man who brought Arabic to our nation's classrooms.

Gouder even goes to the extreme length of giving PN politicians good billing in his sycophantic ode to the Libyan dictator.

This man says that I am worse than Gaddafi

Forget the tortured nanny, Bondiplus is what he's worried about

Ronnie Pellegrini, a current PL employee and former Lorry Sant thug, called for my head to be chopped off. A few hours later, Tony Zarb, the GWU secretary general, made exactly the same call through his official organ, l-Orizzont.

Repeating the PL's blatant lie that Bondiplus has been repeatedly found guilty of breaking the law, Tony Zarb's editorial line is that allowing me to go on air amounts to "a provocation of the people" and "a declaration of war against the PL". Hard to believe? It get's worse.

When Guido spoke about Gaddafi's grandma

Let's talk grandmas, shall we?

As Labour's past relations with the Gaddafi regime have become the talk of the town, I recalled a classic bit of elegant political humour on the matter.

Such humour is so rare in Maltese politics and the situation right now is so tense that I thought I'd pass it on to lighten things up a bit.

Before the 1976 election Gaddafi addressed a Partit Laburista mass meeting. When it was Dom Mintoff's turn to speak he turned to the Libyan dictator and with messianic fervor told him, 'In-nanniet taghkom huma n-nanniet taghna', (Your grandmas are our grandmas). The crowd roared.

Ronnie, Lorry Sant's thug, wants to chop my head off

"Lorry, thallini nabbracca lil Wenzu?" Ronnie Pellegrini

Ronnie Pellegrini was one of Lorry Sant's thugs. Here he is in this picture behind his boss on the left. I was there when it was taken in the early 1990s, I believe, in Freedom Square, Valletta.

It was a much anticipated debate between Lorry Sant soon after he was kicked out of the PL and the man who was instrumental in delivering the kick, Wenzu Mintoff. The latter had left the PL because of people like the former. In the middle is the moderator, Georg Sapiano, when he had hair and was my university student.

What makes this ambassador tick?

Saadun Suayeh, the Libyan ambassador (left)

Saadun Suayeh, the Libyan ambassador puzzles me. I gather that he is a perfectly well-meaning and nice man.

But I never quite understood why he did not resign from his post to disassociate himself from Gaddafi's murderous regime. That is what most of his Libyan diplomatic colleagues around the world did, including those in much more important posts than his.

Now they made me Minister

Bang on cue, Super One hacks did exactly what I predicted on this blog yesterday. They used up 1 minute 16 seconds of the evening news bullettin to say that Bondiplus will be broadcast twice a week (true) and that it has been repeatedly found guilty of breaking the law (a lie).

Like Pavlov's dogs, they turned the chronically uninteresting fact that Bondiplus will be aired twice into a moment to man the ramparts. Hearing their war room-like language it is as if World War III is imminent.

Driving to work this morning I expected to see people digging up their gardens and installing underground nuclear shelters to protect their loved ones from Bondiplus fallout. Keep Calm And Carry On.

Here is an interesting sidebar. The Super One item was written by one Charlon Gouder. Needless to add, there is no better expert on which laws are broken, by whom, where and at what time. He  got straight 'A's in an intensive night course on the subject at Albert Town.

John Dalli joins the Partit Laburista

DalliPL has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

My theory about politicians who unsuccessfully run for the party leadership is that they are never quite the same afterwards. The exhilarating experience of being so close to the prize during the run up and yet so far from it the instant the result is announced, marks your political soul for life.

Depending on their character and disposition, men deal with this burden differently. Guido de Marco who lost the PN leadership to Eddie Fenech Adami did so by generating as much personal glory from the offices he subsequently occupied, sometimes too much. Yet he always remained impeccably loyal to the man he lost to.

Thanks again

Six days ago, I thanked you for following this blog which was started off as a sideline in July. At the time I was happy to report that it had already clocked in a total of 50,000 pageviews over a relatively short period.

Today, just six days later, the 75,000 pageviews mark has been hit. Again, thank you for following Bondiblog.

Perhaps you might want to have it delivered to your doorstep, in a manner of speaking. There is a box to the right of this post labelled "We deliver (well, sort of)". Click on 'posts' and/or 'all comments', choose your favourite cyber courier and you're all set to have it delivered to your cyber doorstep. You might also have it as an RSS feed on your homepage.

Tonight: Bondiplus on Super One. No, really.

My moles tell me that Bondiplus will be featured on Super One news tonight.

Tonight they will say that in the new TVM season the programme will feature twice a week (true) and that this year it has been repeatedly found guilty of breaking the law (not true).

They will also add I should be locked up at Kordin and forced to listen to a looped tape of Justin Beiber songs all day long (for the peasants: its a joke).

This fascist says that I am a Gozitan midget

A moderate and progessive fascist?

Joe Fava is an unrepentant fascist. He was in the PN, then switched to Labour and then switched back to the PN again in 2004 to try to make John Dalli leader.

Now he is back in the PL trying to make Joseph Muscat prime minister.

If you want the full the story with the gory details of this man's background click here: A dynasty of PN defectors - Episode Two.

This fascist is now fighting back against this blog in l-Orizzont.

His idea of responding to the facts I supplied in Episode Two is to call me a Gozitan midget with an inferiority complex. Cool, really cool.

Urgent you say?

Joseph Muscat's office issued an "urgent" press call. I immediately clicked on to see what the urgency was all about. A public recanting of his party's incestuous forty year relationship with Gaddafi? The first public viewing in six months of Alex Sciberras Trigona, his party's international secretary? A condemnation of Gaddafi and his sons for raping their amazonian private guards just before they fired them.

Nope. The Labour leader will be visiting our Civil Protection Unit which has been giving humanitarian aid to the rebels and their communities.

The name is Caruana, Krista Caruana

Krista (right) auditioning for the next Bond film

Krista Caruana, deputy editor of the PL newspaper KullHadd, sent me the following questions about Bondiplus and the new TVM season. They are so cute I thought I'd answer her here instead. Enjoy.

Sur Bondi,

Xtaqt nistaqsik id-domandi sussegwenti:
1. Tikkonferma li se jibda jkollok zewg programmi fil-gimgha fuq PBS? I am happy to confirm that there will be two editions of Bondiplus a week this season. And there might be another surprise in this regard.

Sorry, too late

You want them now, right now?

Pointlessly, the Maltese government has decided to strip Muammar Gaddafi of the honours bestowed on him. He had been made honorary member of the “Xirka Gieh ir-Republika” in 1975 and honorary companion of honour of the National Order of Merit in 2004.

I say pointlessly because the gesture has come too late to send the right message to the Libyans who put their lives on the line to topple him. Now that Gaddafi is done in, the powerful symbolism that the gesture could have had earlier has been totally lost. In fact, it might be politically counterproductive with the new leadership.

The PL has agreed with government on the matter. This is even more acutely embarrassing. They have spent six months not taking sides in the conflict, not once mentioning Gaddafi by name as the source of the poltical evil in Libya. The first time they mustered the courage to mention it is now that he is a goner. Utterly spineless.

For the record, I had called for the medal stripping exercise on 8 March, before I started this blog. Here is the piece for the record.

"Let's get them off his chest, before we get him off ours"

It is an embarrassment to our country that these medals are still pinned to his chest as more innocent Libyan blood is poured on them. You can see one of the medals on his belly, just below the green sash.

Only a decision by the majority of our MPs in parliament can strip him of these medals. I suggest that they take it now, preferably before he is toppled from power. This is a time for solidarity with our neighbours. Let us show them that the highest institution in the land has the courage to take a stand and be counted. Let's get them off his chest, before we get him off ours.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I want to break free - George Il-Berqa

Lightning at the end of the tunnel

Two years ago, George 'Il-Berqa' Pace, 60, was handed down a 30-year jail sentence for his part in a murder in l-Ahrax tal-Mellieha. He appealed and lost. Now this fine gentleman has filed in a breach of fundamental human rights case claiming that he had not been given a fair trial. The reason? When he gave statements to the police in 2004 he was not assisted by a lawyer when the law giving him such a right was already enacted by parliament but not enabled yet.

A dynasty of PN defectors - Episode Five

Marisa Micallef: Defecting from money to money

Marisa Micallef was a PN candidate and a scathing anti-Labour and anti-Sant columnist. She was also politically appointed to the chairmanship of the Housing Authority.

A single mother, she got a good package from the public coffers, including custom-made flexible hours. But then things changed, or did they?

Edwin sends us to the jungle, the mighty jungle

Imagine a European politician saying the following things about his colleagues and the electorate. If you lose your faith and stop going to church, you lose your conscience. Lock stock and barrel. You become amoral, unable to have morals at all.

Now since having a conscience and morals is essentially what distinguishes humans from other animals, for this politician you are no longer a member of the species. When you exit god's kingdom you walk straight into the animal one. 

If you were baptised Simon, this politician seems to be saying, you become Timon from The Lion King.

Allow this politician to tax your imagination a bit further. He also declares that the instant you lose your faith - and, contrary to local lore, not going to church is tantamount to this - you also lose the ability to distinguish right from wrong. You become a steely-eyed Machiavellian whose life is run by a single dictum: the end justifies the means.

Julia 'thoss dehxa' on Comino: The Movie

Very ... errr, camp

Some asked for more details on the story about Julia Farrugia jumping in icy waters to raise funds for her party's station, Super One TV.

So here is what you need to know.

Someone at Super One had what they thought was a brilliant idea - take a group of 'personalities' to Comino for three days, film them roughing it 24/7 and ask viewers to phone money in.

Comino in December is not quite Alaska, but never mind. Called Izolati, I was forced to watch it because Rachel is a total bad TV junkie, irritainment she calls it.

The John Dalli Reality Show

As the courageous rebels entered the very last bastion of Libya's repressive regime - Gaddafi's compound - my mind went back to the way John Dalli had described the conflict in March. Watching this video now it looks and sounds surreal.

Speaking about Libyans in practically racist terms - unlike us, he pontificates, they are culturally programmed for revenge - Dalli did not believe that the rebels were writing their own placards.

You see ignorance prevents them from expressing their thoughts against tyranny in proper english. I suppose everyone in Qormi has gone to a Swiss finishing school.

When Julia went crying to daddy

It's my committee and I cry if I want to

"Sentejn ilu Lou, fil kampanja tal-MEP's, ghax kont bghattilha sms lil Julia nghidliha li hi laburista allavolja taghmilha ta wahda newtrali, kienet qabdet lil Institute of Maltese Journalists johorgu stqarrija jikkundannawni, minghajr ma tkellmu mieghi biex jaraw il fatti, allavolja jien membru bhala kont, izda hi deputy chairman u ghalhekk qaghdu ful il-kelma taghha biss - justice done finally Julia! What comes around, turns around."

This comment was posted on my facebook wall by Alan Deidun, an environmentalist who contested the last European Parliamentary elections on the PN ticket.

It is yet another indictation of the repulsive double standards that Julia Farrugia and her fellow MaltaToday gutter journalists use.

Julia, try a red bathing suit this time

Blue or Red, Julia?

In May, Julia Farrugia, the editor of Illum, and Saviour Balzan and Roger Degorgio's maltatoday.com.mt ran a story headlined Ic-Chairman tal-PBS Patata. The accompanying video showed Joe Mizzi, the man in question, staggering around in an unconscious state, twice falling to the ground. The Illum/MT posse had a clear intention - to dupe readers and viewers into thinking that the PBS chairman was dead drunk and thereby get him to resign. The aim was achieved.

The instant instinct of all men and women of goodwill, particularly those who know the man, was that Joe Mizzi was set up. After the Eurovision, he did not walk into a Dusseldorf nightclub. He walked into a trap with a spiked drink waiting for him.

So long, Daddu

Joseph Pace, Bishop of Gozo

Mons. Dwardu Bondi, my uncle, peacefully passed away this morning, aged 97.

When he was a young boy he had completely lost his hearing. But that never stopped him from leading a full life, which included extensive travelling. He tended his extensive vegetable garden till his late seventies.

For many years he was the private secretary to Joseph Pace, Bishop of Gozo between 1945 - 1972.

In less than 8 weeks ...

This blog started off less than eight weeks ago in the ITU department of Mater Dei.

Bondiblog was and will remain a sideline, something to do when family, work and fun are not in the vicinity. Nevertheless, I am happy to report that it has already clocked in a total of 50,000 page views over such a short period. Thank you for following Bondiblog.

Now you're talking, George? Hardly.

About Gaddafi's death squads? Nah, Maltese University students

For the last six months, the PL said nothing about the situation in Libya, except for some very vague words, so vague that they were totally meaningless. Not once did they condemn Gaddafi, or even mention his name. 

Worse still, not once did the PL offer a word of support to the rebel forces. Joseph Muscat's international secretary, Alex Sciberras Trigona, has been in deeper hiding than Gaddafi himself.

Another one bites the sand

Black Sabbath haircut, circa 1973

As Gaddafi's repressive regime draws its last breath in Tripoli, just over 200 miles to our south, all sorts of thoughts come to mind, mostly happy ones. Libya, Africa and the world will finally get rid of yet another crackpot dictator.

Six and a half million Libyans will express a sigh of relief. Or rather most of them will. On top of the graves of their loved ones, the martyrs who lost their lives for the cause, they can now plan to build a state of their own making.

We shall have to see what it will look like. But the most important thing is that the fall of Gaddafi will give them an opportunity to take their own destiny in hand for the first time in four decades.

A dynasty of PN defectors - Episode Four

"Rachel, Pleeaase interview me"

Shortly before the last general election, Alfred Sant, the PL's leader, addressed his party conference at which I was present. Raising party delegates expectations to fever pitch, he read out a list of 'prominent' Nationalists who he said had switched to Labour. He brought the house down as the delegates rose to their feet chanting 'Viva l-Lejber, hey hey'. A man on Sant's list was a certain Jo Said.

Who is this more recent member of the PN defectors dynasty? Jo Said has, how shall I put it, issues with the real world. For starters, he draws a disability pension on mental health grounds. What's more, no one of any consequence in the PN who I spoke to even knew he was. To turn a Pink Floyd line on its head, there's someone in his head and it is him.

Sorry, not in my name either

No one is giving liberal thinking in Malta a worse name than those screeching 'I am a liberal' from the rooftops. These misguided bien pensants seem to think that being a liberal requires you to stop sharing community values with others, to lose your sense of proportion, of good judgement and, well, of the commonest of senses.

Take this new group calling itself Not In Our Name whose members are pestering the curia to strike them off it's register. They want to, as it were, de-baptise themselves. It appears that the curia - ever its own worst enemy - is not making it easy for them. So now these atheists or lapsed Catholics are threatening to take the church to court for not erasing the effect of a few drops of holy water on their foreheads administered shortly after their births. Click: Faith defectors considering legal action against Curia.

A dynasty of PN defectors - Episode Three

Doing his "duties"

Moving on to the nineties, we come across a true blue (soon to be red) political buccaneer - Notary Sandro Schembri Adami. He started off in the early nineties as a staunch PN militant, publicly calling on the party "biex ikompli jtihom lill-Laburisti". But behind closed doors he was not trusted and despite his incessant grovelling was not allowed to contest on the PN ticket.

So the buccaneer switched to Labour and was elected twice, in 1992 and 1996. Prime Minister Alfred Sant immediately gave him the prestigious post of chairman of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. He was also appointed as board director of the state-owned Libyan-Arab Maltese Holding Company. Then he fell out with Alfred Sant as Sant's government began its free fall.

A dynasty of PN defectors - Episode Two

Joseph Fava, Knight Templar

From Sua Altezza in the seventies we move to another PN defector to the PL, Joseph Fava. This one also calls himself a 'Knight Templar' but that is the least colourful trait of this almost fascist's life in politics.

Now you probably do not have a clue who he is. That's because he is a low profile man suffering from a seriously delusional condition - he thinks that he is this country's political king-maker. The problem is that throughout his life he has always backed the wrong man and for the wrong throne.

A dynasty of PN defectors - Episode One

Sua Altezza, ex-PN

It is a dynasty which was started by a fake knight and has come down to us in the figure of a man who circulates pornographic pictures of his ex-boyfriend.

A gay heraldic cult? Not quite. It is a list of men and women who defected from the PN to the PL over the years. As I gazed at the sleepy Marsalforn bay on a starlit night, a question popped up: What sort of men defect from the PN? What do they have in common? The journey begins ...

This is not 15 October, 1979

MaltaToday takes a holiday

MaltaToday was not published today (Wednesday).

The official reason is that their employees needed a holiday. A holiday? Newspapers don't take holidays, people do. But I cannot say I was surprised. It is yet another confirmation that it is not a newspaper. It is a public vehicle for private envy. Their envy took a break, not their employees.

Incidentally, I am not taken in by the official reason. They probably did not have enough advertising as usual and decided to cut their losses for a week. The Wednesday edition has already been whittled down to the size of a church bulletin you find in the pews on Sunday. Which is rather appropriate given that it is now official that their circulation is less than that of Lehen is-Sewwa.

Church separate from state? Forget it

In the year-long divovce legislation debate I argued that opposition to it was all about religion and had very little to do with the public good. And that is the way that the saga panned out till the very cringifying end, with the last crusaders voting against it in parliament before being finally engulfed by the flames of the referendum result.

This is by no means a one off phenomenon. Unfortunately, putting religion before the public good is still an acceptable way of doing politics in Malta. For all the sublime constitutional talk about the separation of church and state, their clandestine affair is still ongoing. Here is another example.

Is Cyrus still tasting Marvic?

You've got a friend

Some people just don't know when to stop digging. Cyrus Engerer is one of them.

He has posted this message on his facebook wall: "Not usual for me to stay awake from politics and the Council, however, after posting some nice pictures, thought of posting this beautiful song: Excuses by The Morning Benders".

Let us start with the Freudian slip. Not usual for him to stay "awake" from politics? Mmm, you can say that again. Now to the really juicy bit, the lyrics.

The house that changed

Renzo Piano it ain't

On a visit with my youngest to watch the magnificent sunset in Dwejra, Gozo I finally snapped one of this house. Finally because it is not the first time I have seen it. Unless the mists of time are playing tricks on me, it started off as a source of fear for me as a boy. Wild fantasy, macabre Gozitan legends and Ladybird ghost story books conspired to terrorise me. Why are there no windows and what is that mysterious staircase in the back? Who or rather what lived in a house with a balcony missing a door?

The marriage of Nikita & Cyrus

Please marry me

This year's silly season is becoming sillier by the day. Not because in the absence of political raw material journalists are resorting to hackneyed light subjects, but, on the contrary, because the remains of the political season are themselves sillier. Leading the way by a mile is Ms Nikita Alamango.

Last time we encountered the young lady was yesterday when she had the The Times’editor’s boot up her bottom. Blogger Jacques Rene Zammit caught her out plagiarizing an article from the UK’s Financial Times for her blog and she was immediately fired from The Times. Click on the original story - Nikita scissorhands.

StandUp Nikita

Nikita Alamango

Nikita Alamango, a member of the PL's national executive and the international secretary has just been 'outted'. Not in the gay sense, as you might expect given her assiduous promotion of gay issues or because she seems to have mentored Cyrus Engerer's defection to Labour. The outing is of a different sort.

Blogger Jacques Rene Zammit has spotted that she brazenly plagiarised a post on her Times blog from an article in the Financial Times. No half measures for Nikita: if she's going to steal, she steals from the best. Within hours, The Times did the correct thing and removed her from their list of bloggers.

Sean, se naghmlu riot?

Riot? No

The Times reported the arraignment of a certain Sean Zammit from Birkirkara for attacking police officers. Our Sean was described as a "Mercedes-driving 19-year-old with two girlfriends" who allegedly attacked two police officers for no apparent reason when he was stopped for particulars. Sean seems to be quite a strong babe magnet. His two girlfriends were present in court and "each hired a separate lawyer to take good care of him". Stand by your man indeed.

Now what?

Pieta, we have a situation

The PN will soon be approving the list of candidates for the next election. At the same time, it is still bound by an anti-divorce position it took last February when the referendum was looming. Herein lies a problem.

Many forget that until it took this position, the PN was not against divorce. It just did not have a position. So up till February, it was perfectly acceptable for even those in its higher echelons to be in favour of divorce. In the 1990s, for instance, Michael Falzon was a PN minister and in favour. More significantly, Frank Portelli, a divorced man himself, was the president of the party's own executive council. More recently, the PN fielded a number of candidates for the local and the European parliaments who were also in favour. Until February, everything was hunky dory.

What are you saying, Michael?

Look, the PL is on his mind

“National security, even personal security, is under threat … there have been recurring and worrying cases concerning liberties and democratic rights.” Mubarak’s Egypt? Parisian suburbs run by radicalized muslims? Rioting London? Nope. This is how Michael Falzon, Labour’s shadow minister for justice and the interior, sees Malta at present.

Victor, what happened?

Former Judge Victor Caruana Colombo presides over the Curia's Response Team. When the now convicted sex abuser Charles Pulis was originally hauled in front of him, Caruana Colombo pronounced him innocent. Yet when he was tried by the court for the same abuse, he was found guilty and sent to jail.

Go the Fok to sleep

Nursery Cryme

My favourite Samuel L. Jackson scene appears in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. While he's routinely shooting someone to death he's also animately discussing the culinary attributes of hamburgers with his partner in crime, John Travolta.

They should have continued to drink cappuccinos

Darling, let's forget the riots

David Cameron, the British PM, cut short his Tuscan holiday to return to a rioting, not so beautiful, London town. According to the BBC, one of his first moves was "to meet officers in the Met Police's Gold command".

Shock, horror. How dare he demean Westminster, the mother of all parliaments, in this way? Didn't the British prime minister know that he cannot interfere at all in police business? Didn't he learn anything from the fracas caused by the phone call Edgar Galea Curmi made to the Police Commissioner?

Why are journalists scared of her?

You talkin' to me

Over the last weeks, Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote about two appointments in Joseph Muscat's summer evening diary. First, she reported that the man who wants to run the country went with his wife to magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera's house in Siggiewi one evening at 10pm. The magistrate is being investigated by the Commission for the Administration of Justice over a land deal. The man who initiated the case has also told the police that she lied under oath. In the near future, the court should be pronouncing on the shocking allegations - involving sex, drugs, corruption, lying and other sleaze - that the blogger herself made about the magistrate.

More money = more justice

Bro. Louis Mallia

“I don’t know how much it cost us. They had the right to be defended like anyone else; but it is not true we were ready to pay whatever it took to get them freed.” So said Louis Mallia, the MSSP Regional Superior, about footing the legal bill for the defense of his brothers in the order who have been found guilty of teenage sexual abuse. The lawyers in question were Giannella Caruana Curran and Joe Giglio.

First point. Bro Mallia is absolutely right that Pulis, Scerri and the other sex abusers had a right to be defended like any other citizen. Indeed, Bro Mallia erred on the side of caution when he said that his order was not ready "to pay whatever it took to get them freed". The essence of criminal justice is that the accused makes the strongest defense case possible. And if takes good money to do so, so be it

Miq Miq

Like a rolling stone

This trailer was in front of me in the Gozo ferry car queue. I confess total ignorance in transport security measures. So what I have to say might be completely off the mark.

But sitting in my car behind this behemoth was quite disturbing. Each of the four Ggantija-sized boulders was secured only by a single strap no wider than the waist belt I was wearing. More scarily, there did not seem to be anything at all to prevent them from sliding back.

I am sailing, I am sailing ... errr across the bay

"Mary, baqghalek werqa tursin?"

Ours is a tiny, densely populated island where 'bumping into someone' actually happens quite frequently. At the same time, we are surrounded by one of the most beautiful open seas in Europe. I always thought that owning a boat was a sublime way for the well off to avoid the suffocation of the former and embrace the blue expanse of the latter. Not quite.

Look at these boats in a photo I took from my balcony in Marsalforn. Observe two instances of a common sight this time of year: groups of them tied to each other.

And what is this your Grace?

Pull the RT's plug

Former Judge Victor Caruana Columbo, the chairman of the Curia's Response Team, has spent the last 8 years trying to decide whether Lawrence Grech and his fellow orphans were sexually abused at St Joseph Home. He would still be scratching his head and twiddling his thumbs had media pressure not led the Vatican itself to dive in to sort out the mess.

When Mons Carmel Scicluna, the Pope's delegate on such matters, came to Malta to effectively take over the case, he did more on the case in 8 days than Caruana Colombo did in 8 years.

This guy either tells lies or peddles them

Looking left and right

"My ‘serious allegations’ seem to have emanated from a private conversation I had in confidence with my client, Christopher Engerer, who in turn appears to have discussed the matter with his son, who subsequently discussed the matter with his godfather who then, felt duty bound to call the Commissioner of Police, in order for him to contact me to convince me that there was no political motivation behind the criminal charges and my client’s arrest ... I never made any statement, nor any form of allegations whatsoever vis-à-vis the modus operandi of the Police."

"We sent our father to jail"

On the court steps, minutes after the sentence was handed down, we referred to the sexual abuse victims of Charles Pulis and Godwin Scerri as "survivors". Because absent from those steps were many victims who could not be there. Some committed suicide, others died of a drug overdose and others are languishing in jail for a variety of crimes.

Fr Bernard, you've got mail

The Times online has reported that its sources in the Vatican confirmed that Fr Charles Pulis has been defrocked "about two weeks ago" but it is only the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSSP), that is Pulis' bosses, who can make the announcement public.

Very strangely, Fr Bernard Mangion, the MMSP superior general, said that he has not received "any official papers" from the Vatican confirming the defrocking and that before he does he "cannot speak".

Charles and Godwin should get a life ... in prison

The two paedophiles, Godwin Scerri and Charles Pulis - now denuded of their priestly robes by the Vatican - have appealed against their jail sentences.

Why? To prove their innocence? No. They do not have a hope in, well, hell of proving that the sentence was a miscarriage of justice. The evidence brought against them in court by the ten victims was just overwhelming. In addition, Magistrate Saviour Demicoli made it all too obvious that he considers them to be pathological liars apart from paedphiles. I suppose one cannot be a one without being the other.

This is the house where sex abusers lived

As I drove to catch the ferry to Gozo this evening I had to stop to take a picture of this dilapidated house in Cirkewwa. As the last rays of sun kissed it's decaying red walls, it spoke to me. It looked like the perfect symbol of the day's end.

The day started with the court sending Fr Charles Pulis and Fr Godwin Scerri to jail for six and five years respectively for sexually abusing boys. And it was ending with this house waiting impatiently to be engulfed by the evening's darkness, and therein to hide its shame. For it was in this house that these two priests committed some of their nauseating crimes on so many boys.