Opinion: Chris Fearne’s gimmicks

Chris Fearne asked the police commissioner to investigate the malicious fabricated media reports about him. Didn’t he ask the commissioner to investigate last year?  

Fearne also asked the police to uncover and prosecute “the hidden hand” behind what he called the €6 million frame-up. Fearne should know that our police uncover nothing. They’re completely useless or totally unwilling to act. 

The biggest joke was that Fearne asked Speaker Anglu Farrugia to afford him protection. Farrugia is the man who claimed he knew about the rotten deals on Labour’s fourth floor but who cowardly refused to answer questions before the Caruana Galizia inquiry. 

Farrugia considered Fearne’s request and then bombastically announced in parliament that he would grant Fearne the protection of the House. In response to this utter nonsense all his fellow MPs greeted the Speaker’s ruling with applause. What an utter parody. 

Farrugia has absolutely no power or authority to afford any protection to anybody.  It’s not like he has a massive intelligence apparatus and a fully armed Republican guard at his disposal. Parliament doesn’t have its own Swiss guard regiment to guarantee Fearne’s security and that of his family.

Fearne is right to be concerned. He’s right to fear for his own and his family’s safety. He’s absolutely correct that “they could go further”. Those willing and able to divert millions in taxpayers’ money to destroy him won’t stop at anything. But asking Anglu Farrugia for some windy declaration in parliament is hardly protection. His colleagues’ applause won’t save him.

What protection did Anglu Farrugia offer? Absolutely none. Comically, he simply asked the Police Commissioner to ensure Fearne was provided with the necessary protection. 

That same Police Commissioner was asked to investigate the false reports last June. FCID superintendent James Grech testified in court that the police investigated and they found the allegations about Fearne were false.

Instead of pursuing those peddling malicious allegations and identifying the “hidden hand”, the police simply “wrapped up the investigation”. They didn’t bother pursuing those responsible. They let it go.

The Police Commissioner dropped the investigation. He had no idea who was behind those malicious claims. We’re expected to believe he didn’t even bother investigating them. Yet Anglu Farrugia is asking Angelo Gafa to protect Fearne without Gafa knowing who the criminal gang behind those false reports is. 

Gafa has an entire country’s resources at his disposal, but he didn’t bother to pursue those “pitch dark” forces, as Fearne called them.

A small group of journalists with limited resources were able to discover Steward was behind the hatchet job. They exposed Armin Ernst for circulating the false bank transaction and the fake report on Fearne’s profiteering from passport sales. And they identified how much money was paid to CT group, the UK intelligence firm whose boss Joseph Muscat invited to Malta’s CHOGM.

It’s hard to believe a few journalists could find all this out, providing copies of emails and hard evidence supporting their claims, but Malta’s police force could not. It’s difficult to contain the suspicion that Angelo Gafa knew exactly who was behind the attempt at Fearne’s political assassination and just steered clear. It’s either that or Gafa is entirely unfit for his role. Probably both.

Fearne said he expected the police “to get to the bottom of it”. The Maltese police don’t get to the bottom of anything. Everything we know about Labour’s shocking corruption is thanks to journalists: Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s secret Panama companies, Yorgen Fenech’s 17-Black, Chen Cheng’s Macbridge, the Mozura windfarm, the Electrogas scandal, the Vitals/Steward disaster, the Marsa flyover, the SVPR DB rotten deal, Joseph Muscat’s profits from Accutor AG, his exotic birds consultancy.  

Not one of those massive scandals was uncovered by the Maltese police.  When they were uncovered, Angelo Gafa simply looked on. His police didn’t investigate, and didn’t prosecute. Even when the FIAU under Manfred Galdes exposed Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s machinations, the police did nothing. 

Fearne is right about one thing: “Thanks to journalists, including from your media house, the truth is emerging”. That truth isn’t emerging thanks to Angelo Gafa. It seems his main role is to cover up crime and offer protection to those committing it. 

Fearne is the only Labour voice in the desert lauding journalists for revealing the truth. His boss, Robert Abela, is busy attacking those journalists and accusing them of being part of the establishment, harassing them during press conferences live on camera.

Parliament’s chief clown, Anglu Farrugia, instructed the Foreign Ministry to raise Fearne’s matter with the US embassy “given that Steward is a US-based company”. The buffoon said, “There could be a case of corporate crime that needs to be given priority by US law enforcement officials.”

That “corporate crime” was orchestrated by top officials in Malta’s government, people like Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and Joseph Muscat.

The US State Department has gone further than our own law enforcement. They banned Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi from entering the United States because of their “significant corruption”, for “using their political influence and official power for their personal benefit”, and because of “kickbacks and bribes”.  The US already publicly declared that Mizzi and Schembri “undermined the rule of law”. 

Steward could never have robbed us of those hundreds of millions if Joseph Muscat, Mizzi and Schembri hadn’t struck secret deals with them, including the obscene 100 million euro escape clause. 

But Anglu Farrugia wants US law enforcement to act, and Chris Fearne wants Angelo Gafa to prosecute the “hidden hand”. Gafa has been protecting that hidden hand for years. Multiple NAO reports, FIAU reports and countless journalists’ investigations were ignored. Angelo Gafa never lifted a finger. No investigation, no prosecution. 

This is a failed state whose institutions have been hollowed out by a decade of Labour. 

Fearne now bears the brunt of his party’s project to capture state institutions for malevolent purposes. 

Angelo Gafa can’t protect Fearne and won’t protect him. All Fearne can expect is some applause from his colleagues and more empty words from parliament’s clown Speaker.