Was the media used to put pressure on Hofstra to hand his recordings to the police?

Malta Today and Lovin Malta penned a number of articles about Julian Hofstra. What intrigues me most is the motive behind these articles. Are they intended simply to be a piece of news? Or are there other motives? In other words, were they intended to pass a clear message to Hofstra to hand over the recordings to the police or else he would be prosecuted?

In my opinion, it was for this reason, and this reason alone that the police started feeding stories to the media about Julian Hofstra. The first articles appeared in Lovin Malta and later in Malta Today, all depicting the Dutchman as some sort of serial criminal with a dangerous past. Besides depicting Hofstra a criminal and that the police want him, these journalists resuscitated John Dalli and even dragged Konrad Mizzi into the picture.

Each time that an article about Hofstra appeared in the press, this article was quickly sent to Hofstra. Then, the infamous story of the TOM bribery charge came along. As one can imagine, Hofstra received this link that Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers were going to face charges for bribery without any comments. The message is very clear. “Your lawyers are in trouble. They don’t have police backing.”

But I also query why should the police be backing lawyers? The police should simply be doing their job to the best of their ability with honesty and correctness and not play footsie with lawyers.  

Then, came my article, wherein I revealed that one of the sisters of Daphne Caruana Galizia sent an email to get information from Hofstra. I also revealed that an intermediary invited Hofstra to enter into a correspondence with Matthew Caruana Galizia. At this point, Hofstra ceased to be a seasoned criminal.

Yet, this whole saga does not stop here. During the last compilation session against Yorgen Fenech, the court refused to grant Yorgen Fenech bail. The reason given by Philip Galea Farrugia was that the police need to bring other witnesses. This was covered by the press. This part of the press coverage was also sent to Julian Hofstra. This time round, it was sent to him by an anonymous person. This person told him that he might be the one that the police want to call as witness in this case.

It should be stated that the names of witnesses are not communicated by the police and it is also very unlikely that Hofstra will be called as witness in this case. But if this is true and the police or the prosecution intends to use this case to enforce the extradition of Hofstra to Malta, then such tactics show what a type of police state we are living in.

In other words, did the police oppose bail to Yorgen Fenech, because they want to ask Julian Hofstra to appear as witness? I cannot fathom why bail should be denied for this reason. Do the police really believe that Hofstra, who, in his youth, spent some time on the island, but is known to have a superior intelligence, would allow himself to be duped by any fickle story that does not hold water?