Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1497813
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 APRIL 2023 10 OPINION Chronology of a dog-attack, foretold YES, yes; I am perfectly aware that the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1981 novel is actually "CHRONICLE - not 'chronolo- gy' - of a death foretold". But that wouldn't really work, in this particular context... be- cause I wasn't physically present, on site, to actually 'chronicle' the events that took place on Anto- nio Sciortino Street, Msida, on the night of Monday, April 17 (even though I could very eas- ily have been: it is, after all, just two minutes' walk from my own front door, in Ta' Xbiex... which means that I, too, have been liv- ing in abject terror of those same dogs, for at least two years now). But in any case: from now on, I will simply assume you are all familiar with at least the basic facts: i.e., how the 'victim' of this latest dog-attack - Andre Galea: who once described himself (on his own Facebook profile) as 'a dog-breeder, specialising in pit- bull terriers' – was unaccount- ably still in possession of 'any- where up to eight' such dogs, in the confines of his Msida apart- ment, until just last Monday... ...even if he is separately facing manslaughter charges, over the fatal mauling of his own grand- mother (also by his own dogs) back in September 2020: and as such, was supposed to have been observing 'strict bail conditions', all this time. Likewise, you will doubtless al- ready have seen that viral video, in which Andre Galea appeared 'clinging for dear life', to the roof of a blood-stained car... and by now, you will probably also know that he ended up actually killing one of those dogs himself: with a 'knife' that he – very conven- iently, it must be said – just hap- pened to 'have on his person', at that precise instant. (Because, you know, it is con- sidered perfectly 'normal' – any- where in the civilised world – for responsible dog-owners to take their pets out for 'walkies', in the dead of night: armed with a lethal weapon, 'just in case'...) Meanwhile, another wide- ly-known fact is that Galea's long-suffering neighbours had been alerting the Animal Wel- fare authorities to the continued presence of those dogs – and the danger they so clearly posed to the general public (not to men- tion, the plight of the animals themselves) – for months before this latest attack... with no vis- ible results, other than a couple of 'inspections' which – some- what bizarrely – concluded that Galea's dogs were actually being kept in 'entirely acceptable con- ditions'. Honestly, though: it makes you wonder if the AWD even got the right Msida apartment, to begin with. 'Entirely acceptable condi- tions', huh? We all saw photos of those two pit-bulls terriers that killed Inez Galea in 2020: and one of them looked like it had just been shot in the face, at close range, with a BLUNDERBUSS, for crying out loud! [See image, above.] But never mind all that, because – as I was saying earlier – there is not much point in attempting to 'chronicle' events, which have already been so thoroughly doc- umented. So instead: let's try putting them into some kind of chron- ological order, shall we? Starting with that fateful September day... ... no, not in 2020: when 95-year-old Inez Galea was sav- agely mauled to death, by two of several dogs her own grand- son kept in the same apartment block. [Note: out of respect for that poor woman's memory, I will do what the law-courts themselves did, a year later... and spare you the truly horrific de- tails that emerged from her au- topsy.] Let's fast-forward to just over a year later - on September 29, 2021 - when Andre Galea him- self was formally charged in court with manslaughter. During the very first session of that trial, Inspector Colin Shel- don testified that: "in the house where the tragedy happened, there were a number of Pitbulls... SIX OF WHICH STILL LIVE THERE TODAY". [my empha- sis] Got that, folks? It turns out that – a full year after two of Andre Galea's pit-bull terriers had (quite literally) 'torn his own grandmother to pieces' – the same individual still remained the proud owner of as many as 'half-a-dozen' dogs of the same (or similar) breed... to which, by the way, he has evidently been adding, ever since (it's 'anywhere up to eight' now, remember?) And this information, please note, was originally made public in open court: that is to say, in front of a presiding magistrate; within earshot of representatives of both the Attorney General's office, and the Police Force; and to be picked up (as it duly was) by all the local media, etc. In other words: it wasn't ex- actly what you'd call a 'well-kept secret', was it now? And yet, it seems that all of Malta's law-en- forcement agencies – the law- courts, the police, the AG, AWD: every last one of them – chose to simply 'ignore' that crucial detail, for no less than two whole years. But wait, it gets a lot worse. Lat- er in the same trial, we also got to hear the testimony of one of the vets who physically examined the dogs themselves. And what do you know? It turns out that: "Both pit-bulls had scars, one on its face" - presumably, that's the one in the picture - and, more significantly, that: "these inju- ries were two to three weeks old, and were CONSISTENT WITH DOG FIGHTS" [my emphasis, again]. Now: it almost feels redundant to even ask the question at all, but... on what grounds, exactly, did Malta's entire law-enforce- ment sector (once again) choose to 'overlook' that teenie-weenie little detail... which, at the end of the day, amounts to very em- phatic evidence, that another crime – over and above the death of Inez Galea; and also involv- ing 'dangerous dogs'- may have been separately committed, by the same individual, just 'two to three weeks' earlier? Well... to this question, at least, we do have an 'answer' of sorts. It was provided by the director of Animal Welfare, Pauline Az- zopardi, in response to wide- spread criticism of 'inactivity' by her own directorate. And it went something like... this: 1) "I was not going to put any AWD personnel in danger by just sending to the house where they would have to face these dangerous dogs. So I sent them to hospital to speak to the owner instead, who then sent another person familiar with the dogs, who brought them out one by one." 2) "We are also lacking staff and space to keep these dangerous dogs. Our dog section is not yet complete, which means I had to find private kennels to take in the dogs. Am I expected to put my own people at risk to face such dogs? We would like to collect