Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1272935
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 JULY 2020 Raphael Vassallo OPINION All this speculation is getting us nowhere I assume you haven't been hi- bernating… sorry, 'estivating'… over the past week: so I imagine you already know what all the speculation has been about. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to spell it out anyway. Last Tuesday, Melvin Theuma – who needs no further introduction – was found in his apartment suffering from serious knife wounds to his throat, abdomen and left wrist. He was apparent- ly conscious at the time of this discovery; or at least, conscious enough to indicate to the police – according to Inspector Keith Arnaud – that the wounds had been 'self-inflicted'. That was three days ago (I'm writing this on Friday), and Theuma has since been hospi- talised: initially in critical con- dition, only to later be reported as 'stable'. But short of the detail that his vocal cords have been severed – leaving him unable to communicate verbally – we have been given very few details of the nature and severity of the wounds themselves. As for the rest of the details – e.g.; that the knife was found in Theuma's hand; that there were no signs of forced entry, or that any significant struggle had taken place; the victim had no 'defensive wounds'; and also that the pattern of blood stains was more compatible with 'self- harm' than with assault…. … those are all details which have been supplied by the Po- lice Force, without – so far, at least – any further corrobora- tion from any other source… including Mater Dei Hospital: which has not released any form of detailed statement regarding the victim's condition (other than to announce that he is no longer critical). And this creates a number of major problems when it comes to reporting about this particu- lar incident. The first is that… and I'll put this as bluntly as I can… the police cannot be the sole providers of information, in a case where the same police have also, up to a point, been implicated themselves. You surely will not need me to remind you that Theuma's testimony, to date, had already suggested complicity been ele- ments in the Police Force, and both the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017, as well as questions surrounding the subsequent investigation. And while this this doesn't necessarily mean that the al- legations themselves are Gos- pel truth… it does imply that everything now hinges on how much credence we are all will- ing to give to the Police Force as a whole. Hence the second major prob- lem: this factor, in itself, seems to depend exclusively on what form of narrative we choose to frame the limited information we have been given. Predictably, the lack of any reliable details – coming from equally reliable sources – has once again neatly polarised public opinion along two dia- metrically-opposed lines: There are those who accept the official version of events without question (and who, by the same token, automatically dismiss any suggestion of foul play as part of a complex 'con- spiracy')… … and those who operate on exactly the same principle, on- ly in reverse: refusing, on prin- ciple, to believe a single word the police ever say… because, in the narrative they've chosen for themselves, the Police Force – along with every other national institution, it seems – has been 'captured' by a State that is up to its eyeballs in criminality and deceit anyway. Meanwhile, a third difficulty is that it is now (regrettably) im- possible to critically examine either of those two narratives, without sooner or later having to resort to speculation of one's own. Before moving on, then… I just want to point out that I my- self will be reserving judgment on what actually happened last Tuesday. And if I do go on to suggest any hypothetical scenarios of my own (which I will)… they are to be taken only as 'possibilities'; and even then, just to illustrate the sheer com- plexity of the scenario we are now confronted with. Right: now, onto the business. Among the many reasons given to doubt the official version of events, there has so far been: a) Because the police jumped the gun by describing the inci- dent in terms of an 'attempted suicide', before a full investiga- tion had taken place (suggest- ing, in turn, that they were al- together too keen on dismissing the alternative 'attempted mur- der' hypothesis). The answer to this one is mer- cifully brief. Erm… no, actually. Neither the police's press state- ment, nor Wednesday's press conference, described the inci- dent as an 'attempted suicide' at all. The exact words were that Theuma had possibly 'harmed himself' ('weggha lilu nnifsu')… and, much more important- ly, the same police statement also added that investigators were 'excluding nothing, at this stage'. So exactly how certain peo- ple (including the Opposition spokesman for Justice, no less) managed to interpret that as a case of 'concluding' that Theu- ma had attempted suicide – when the police report said nothing of the kind – is, I sup- pose, every bit as mysterious as what actually happened in that Swieqi apartment last Tuesday night. This brings us to: b) Because 'throat-slashing', as a method of committing suicide, is 'ex- tremely rare'. There are two logical fallacies at work here. I've already out- lined the first: where on earth did these people get the impres- sion that this was a suicide at- tempt to begin with? Have they never even heard of self-harm before? If not, may I suggest they read the papers more often. Just last November, it was reported that 'one to three' self-harm cases were being admitted to Mater Dei hospital… every single day. So how on earth could one more incident to add to the list – no matter how drastic the self- harm may be, in this particular case – have possibly become so We need more detailed, reliable channels of communication in cases such as this one, because the only alternative to reliable information is wild speculation