The ever loyal Anġlu Farrugia

Fifteen heavily armed police officers dressed in black and wearing balaclavas forced their way into a Swieqi apartment, pointed guns at four innocent residents’ faces, forced them to their knees and tied their hands behind their backs with cable ties.

The police officers refused to identify themselves during the incident or even explain why they had broken into the apartment. The police had botched another raid. They had messed up the whole thing, as they’ve done before, and then tried to cover it up.

When the four residents tried to file a report at a police station the following day they were prevented from doing so. A police officer simply told them he would contact them, but didn’t.

The incident happened last month but only came to light because the four terrified residents filed a judicial protest alleging the officers “unlawfully” and “violently” forced their way into their apartment.

When the story broke, the police, instead of politely apologising for making a mess of the situation, frantically shifted the blame onto the magistrate. “The officers involved in the raid were executing warrants issued by the duty magistrate,” read the brief police statement.

The action, the police claimed, was linked to a risky operation involving alleged drug importation and trafficking – as if that justified their botched operation. The police failed to offer any explanation of what went wrong and why they subjected four innocent individuals to the terrifying ordeal. They announced that they could not give further details “in view of legal proceedings.” What a pathetic excuse.

To further fudge things, in stepped the bungling Angelo Gafa. He tied himself up in knots trying to defend the indefensible.

“The address was not wrong, but the people (who were terrified by his officers) were not the suspects related to the case,” Gafa confabulated. “It does not appear to me that there was any fault on the part of the police,” he insisted, adding that “in this case, the police made the necessary preparations and planning.”

Indeed, they planned so well that they broke into the wrong apartment and terrorised completely innocent residents. Gafa offered no apology to those traumatised residents. His obstinate refusal to admit to the glaringly obvious flop is no reassurance to the public that this won’t happen again or that any serious review of police processes will be conducted.

It didn’t stop there. Minister Byron Camilleri bolstered the police’s defence. He told the Times of Malta that “the raid was made on the order of a magistrate.” Byron Camilleri’s message was crystal clear – don’t blame the police, they were only doing what the magistrate requested.

Byron Camilleri was challenged in Parliament to explain why the police got it so wrong. He was given the opportunity to reassure the public that the case will be thoroughly investigated and all steps taken to avoid similar events in future.  Instead Camilleri cynically commented: “I will not judge either side.”

“There are two sides to a story,” the minister added. Of course there are. One side was subjected to an unnecessary terrifying ordeal in their own apartment which will leave lasting psychological scars while the other failed the most basic standards of duty, deflected blame onto the duty magistrate, and then attempted to cover up the whole thing under the guise of “ongoing legal proceedings.”

In Parliament, Byron Camilleri didn’t present the “two sides to the story.” He presented just one side in a misguided attempt to protect those responsible for the botched raid. Camilleri quoted the same deceitful police statement blaming the magistrate.

Minister Camilleri didn’t qualify that statement. He didn’t point out, as the Police Commissioner was later compelled to do, that in fact the magistrate’s warrant was issued at the request of the police themselves.

Minister Byron Camilleri reinforced the false claim that the police had done no wrong because they were simply executing magisterial orders. That’s exactly what he told the Times of Malta just two days earlier. That’s exactly what the Times of Malta reported on 11^th November 2025 – they faithfully reproduced what Byron Camilleri told them – “the raid was made on the order of the Magistrate”.

But when NET news reported that “Minister Byron Camilleri blamed the magistrate,” the defender of Labour’s truth waded in.

Speaker Anġlu Farrugia ordered the Opposition party and NET News to retract the statement that Byron Camilleri blamed the magistrate for the botched raid. Despite the fact that the Times had reported Byron Camilleri doing just that, Speaker Anġlu Farrugia concluded that Camilleri had not blamed the magistrate.

“At no moment and at no time did he say or imply blame on the magistrate as reported on the NET news portal,” Anġlu Farrugia ruled.

When NET news and the PN took their time submitting to the Speaker’s ridiculous ruling, Anġlu Farrugia took it further.

He referred the Opposition party and NET news to the house privileges committee after finding them prima facie in breach of privilege for ignoring his ruling. Within hours, NET complied and amended their report to the Speaker’s liking and to Byron Camilleri’s delight. Could things be more bizarre in this country?

So the police storm a private residence – fully armed, masked and unidentifiable. They terrorise and detain completely innocent residents. The police then attempt to cover it up and blame the magistrate on duty.

The Police Commissioner insists nothing was wrong and that the police simply did their duty. The Minister joins in the cover up and shifts the blame onto the magistrate while failing to provide any answers as to what went wrong or any reassurance to the public or any apology to the victims.

And then the Speaker of the House leaps to the government’s defence, orders the media to change its report and then moves to sanction not only the media organisation but the whole Opposition party for calling out the minister for shifting blame onto the magistrate.

Masked armed police breaking into private apartments and detaining innocent citizens at gunpoint is of serious concern to all of us. The Speaker censoring the media is deeply disturbing.

But for Anġlu Farrugia, the priority is to shield Byron Camilleri from scrutiny and his Labour government from further embarrassment.