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6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 SEPTEMBER 2026 People of goodwill just want a normal country Editorial CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 People of goodwill are justified to feel an- gry. They are justified to demand sobriety and righteousness from this country's institutions. Because throughout Fenech's trial we heard so many things that sounded bad, incomplete and out of place. We heard police officers testify how they were instructed by their superiors to only collect the devices Keith Schembri indicated during a search at the latter's house. We heard experts admit Schembri's 'lost' mobile phone was never cloned as part of the investigation. We heard Schembri testify that he was informed by an "important per- son" in 2020 that Yorgen Fenech's lawyers want- ed to meet him. We heard the judge ban reporting of Joseph Muscat's name as the person Schembri was referring to. We witnessed the judge order- ing an investigation into a court employee, who asked Schembri for a favour when the latter was in court custody, but refraining from ordering an investigation into more serious claims that Fenech's lawyers attempted to bribe a witness to testify favourably for their client. We knew, but could not report on court order, that prior to the trial, Fenech's lawyers commissioned Vince Marmara to carry out a survey among potential jurors listed on the Government Gazette to as- sess their mood on the Caruana Galizia murder and Fenech's case. The survey was stopped by the court in a closed doors session and jurors never got to know about it. Again, the behaviour of the defence lawyers was not put under scrutiny. We heard Fenech admit he paid Theuma thou- sands of euros to cover the Degiorgio brothers' legal fees and yet on the witness stand the latter acted as if they did not know who Fenech was. The courts inexplicably prohibited any reference to Fenech's multiple pardon requests in 2019. Someone who did nothing wrong would have never requested a presidential pardon. We heard how former Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta had told Fenech they "got his back". We saw Valletta acting like a buffoon in a white Rolls Royce and being egged on by a mocking Fenech. For these and many more reasons, people of goodwill are angry at what appears to be a system rotten to the core. They are confused and una- ble to understand how Fenech could be acquitted practically unanimously on both charges—con- spiracy to murder and association with others to commit a crime—when recordings of his own voice suggest otherwise. The mere fact that a site visit for a murder trial took place at Castille—the Office of the Prime Minister—was also shocking and repul- sive. Equally shocking was a reference to a 2015 aborted plan to murder Daphne that purportedly involved then Economy Minister Chris Cardona and his lawyer friend David Gatt. These are not normal things. Hope is the last thing to die but the first that gets a battering and in days like these people of goodwill are tempted to lose hope. But people of goodwill also know that giving up is not an option. Giving up will mean that the rule of law is substituted by the rule of the jungle, where the strongest, the most powerful, the rich- est and the evil will prevail. And when that hap- pens it is the weakest, the most vulnerable, the righteous and the good who will suffer; who will be enslaved by the yoke of tyranny. And now is not the time to give in to tyranny. Now is not the time to give up in the face of op- pression by those who believe the country has been bequeathed to them in perpetuity. Now is the time to stand up; to sing the song of angry men and women. People of goodwill expect politicians, people in authority and public servants to shoulder re- sponsibility, be accountable for their actions and discharge their duties honestly, transparently and fairly. The Fenech verdict may have temporarily closed Yorgen Fenech's chapter—the prosecution is ap- pealing and seeking a retrial—but it has left the country's book wide open. This is a moment of reckoning that cannot be allowed to pass by as if nothing has happened. And no, this is not the time for prudence and caution as Robert Abela's government wants it to be. Prudence as understood by the prime minister is just an attempt to silence us all. People of good- will have been prudent for far too long expecting the system of governance in this country to work well. Now is not the time to shut up. It is the time to demand the right to live in a normal country where the law applies equally to all. People of goodwill are hoping in a better tomor- row because today has been tainted by the blood of a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, who was brutally erased from the face of the earth and denied justice 10 years later. "When the beating of your heart Echoes the beating of the drums There is a life about to start When tomorrow comes!"* *Borrowed from Les Miserables MaltaToday 10 years ago Transport chief doles out lucrative di- rect order, sets up private firm 4 September 2016 TRANSPORT Malta executive chairman James Piscopo has set up an investment firm of his own Undecim Five Investments Ltd - as the lucrative revolving door of public of- ficials seeking the cor porate shilling, shows nosign of stopping. Paid a salary of €85,000 for overseeing land, mar itime and aviation transport sectors, the former Labour Party chief executive has even set up his company address at the A3Towers in Paola, which also houses the transport au- thority's vehicle and .. licensing units. Piscopo has dismissed Malta's enquiries in- to his business affairs as a "non-story", and declared that he has informed transport minister Joe Mizzi,say ing he was given"his goahead after having assured himself there would be no conflict of interest." Piscopo - a former Air Malta accountant who was then seconded to the PL - said his company does not employanybody since it wasonly recently set up. Undecim Five Investments - set up in Feb- ruary of this year - already owns a stake in BBF Ltd, a company l'egistered last month. [...]