Inside attacks against Victoria Buttigieg in order to ensure Carmelo Abela’s resignation from Parliament
According to what is circulating inside the corridors of the Labour HQ, the deputy labourite Carmelo Abela challenged the Leader of the Labour Party when he decided to stand and participate in the recent general elections. Carmelo Abela was being pressurised not to contest the election. He stood, nonetheless, and was elected but was not given a ministry.
Now manoeuvres have begun to forcibly oblige Carmelo Abela to resign from parliament. These moves started two weeks ago, when The Sunday Times of Malta gave us an article about a group that had travelled to Italy to stay at the agro-tourism centre owned by the famous singer Albano. What happened is that during this stay, one of the members of group, Iosif Galea, was arrested. What made this arrest a news headlines was the fact that this group included former Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat. Undoubtedly, as I have written in a previous article, this was an orchestrated arrest.
After this piece of news appeared in The Sunday Times of Malta, the activist group Repubblika’s president demanded the resignation of Angelo Gafa’, Malta’s Police Commissioner. But it seems that Angelo Gafa’ has strong support because no sooner had Repubblika’s president spoken out that the Malta Police Union rushed to the rescue of Angelo Gafa’ and focused its attention on Victoria Buttigieg, the Advocate General of the Republic demanding she resign.
In the past, the activitist Group Repubblika protested against Victoria Buttigieg and demanded her resignation. Now it was the term of the Police Union to request Buttigieg’s resignation, not on the grounds of what was carried in Sunday Times about Iosif Galea but regarding a different case concerning Darren Debono, known as it-Topo. It-Topo is refusing to testify against those who were accomplices with him in the heist on HSBC after the police agreed to drop charges against him if he accepted to testify against Vince Muscat, il-Koħħu. In Court, Darren Debono refused to testify against the others involved in this case. In fact, it is clear that it is Darren Debono who has not kept the word given and blatantly reneged despite having agreed to testify in exchange for all charges against him being dropped.
What is disconcerting in all this is that we have a union or an association of the police corps demanding the resignation of advocate general exactly at the same time after the story concerning Iosif Galea was broken and the inaptitude of the police in this case to act.
Thus, this is an orchestrated attack against Victoria Buttigieg. What is not being said is that had the Office of the Advocate General not made this deal, the two, i.e. Darren Debono and even Vincent Muscat, il-Koħħu, would have been set free because there was not sufficient evidence to tie them to this case. With Debono’s testimony, it is possible that il-Koħħu would be found guilty.
As a result, it is going to be difficult for this accusation to be proven. Moreover, I remind readers that in this heist, lawyer David Gatt had been accused and his name mentioned in the evidence gathered by the police with regard to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. It must be mentioned here that David Gatt had not been found guilty when accused of being involved in the HSBC hold up.
With this declaration, the Malta Police Union risks undermining proceedings against il-Topo and at the same time, once again, throw an ugly shadow on Carmelo Abela as the person implicated in this case. On a political level, one expects in the near future pressure being put on him to resign from parliament. Rest assured that this orchestration and pressure is going to increase in the coming days.