Less a corps than a corpse

Let us put aside for a moment, and for our collective sanity, any suggestion that Daphne’s gruesome end was the result of a political hatchet job and lean to the only alternative that it was a contract killing put out by the criminal underworld. This then raises a host of unsettling questions, which are not far from being as unsavoury as a political killing.

There can be no doubt that Daphne struck fear in the hearts of the perpetrators, a fear that could only be allayed by her obliteration. A fear, it seems, that our Police Corps were unable to instil. Her Running Commentary had them running scared. Therefore, ruling out a political vendetta, we must ask whether Daphne was privy to a gushing stream of information which the Police may also have had or may not. Whether they had or not, they must have been eaten up with envy. If they didn’t have such information, does that mean that Daphne’s informants trusted her more than they did the Police? Or is it more likely that they didn’t trust the Police at all?

Investigative hounds like Daphne aren’t found in Nordic countries or nonex-USSR satellites now members of the EU. They are found in democracy’s hellholes like Russia and Azerbaijan, where the police are nothing more than the henchmen of the ruling clique masquerading as law enforcers. Where the only difference between them and the criminal underworld is that they use their uniform as a menacing presence for all to see and quake with fear. It is thus to their “Daphnes” that the aggrieved at the mercy of the powerful corrupt turn to try to salvage a shred of justice, decency and hope.

In such states, the criminal underworld is closer to, and looked upon more favourably by, the police than the ordinary law-abiding citizen is.

Turning back to Malta, could it be that the Police did have the same kind of explosive information, or almost the same, but did not act on it? Cases like this, where the Police are less a Corps than a corpse, are legion. Compared to their vitality, rigor mortis is a sign of vibrant life.

The most notorious is the FIAU report and the Pilatus Bank officials sneaking out under cover of darkness, only to be pinned down by the glare of TV cameras.

Another is the Egrant secret account. An email from the Prime Minister‘s chummy accountancy firm revealed that the owner was too high up the totem pole for the name to be put down in writing. It was higher up the pole even than the Prime Minister‘s Chief of Staff and his favourite minister, both of whom were not important enough to be treated with the same sensitivity as the Egrant owner, and whose names made local headlines for years.

This Egrant account was what threw our country in a political turmoil never seen since the horrendous Mintoff years of the 70s and 80s.

Professional secrecy or no – which any way doesn’t apply to accountants in cases like these – the Police should have hauled the accountancy firm’s senior partners to court and had them spill the beans. So, are the Police what they are because of debilitating incompetence or because of rife corruption?

It’s not that important to distinguish between the two, for each feeds on the other; one perhaps more voraciously than the other.

Mr Commissioner, for these reasons you have no other gentlemanly choice – for which you’ve had praise heaped on you in shovelfuls – than to do the most honourable thing in your hapless and tenuous tenure than to call it a day and pack it in. Mr COP, you have no choice but to cop it. Nothing will then become you more than the act of leaving voluntarily. In addition, you will have confirmed publicly what your bosom pals vouch for you: that you are a gentleman like no other.

Joe Genovese