Hands off the investigation

The CaruanaGalizia family is right to insist that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat should keep his distance from the criminal investigation into the assassination of Daphne.

We should be very worried about Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s running commentary on this investigation. This week he made a number of worrying declarations which clearly indicate that he is being informed in real time regarding the proceedings in the police interrogation rooms. This is downright abusive and could have very serious consequences, including the derailing of the investigation.

We were informed by Joseph Muscat that the information that led to the arrest of Yorgen Fenech did not come from the middleman. He further informed us that the middleman has not yet revealed enough information – enough, that is, to conclude the investigation and arraign all those responsible for master-minding and carrying out the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Earlier, in answer to a journalist’s question, he had revealed that “so far” no political person has been identified as a “person of interest” to the criminal investigation. Is this a Freudian slip? Most probably he is worried about the distinct possibility that such an identification could materialise later – when the investigation has matured sufficiently – and he is keeping his fingers crossed. His body language says much more than the words he uttered.

Muscat said that he knows much more, but that he has been keeping back from revealing everything for the past 24 months. Apparently, he has made quite an effort to keep his mouth shut – most probably because it suited him.

Who is in charge in the interrogation rooms at the Floriana Police Headquarters? Why has the Commissioner of Police relinquished his lead of the Police Corps? Is it Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar or is it Commissioner Joseph Muscat who is in charge of the Police and in particular its criminal investigation into Daphne’s assassination?

Various media outlets are revealing titbits of information which seem to indicate that the identification of the middleman as a potential source of additional information of considerable importance seems to have placed the police authorities in a very tight corner. As a result, the Police have no option now but to proceed at a very fast pace. How could one otherwise explain the Prime Minister’s emphasising that the Police authorities already had a solid case before the advent of the middleman?

This is a point also made by Pieter Omtzigt, the Council of Europe rapporteur for the Daphne assassination, who was quoted as saying: “Why was (the middleman’s) evidence worth a pardon one day, only for the PM to then say it was not needed for Fenech’s arrest?” This Omtzigt quote is the logical conclusion to which one inevitably arrives after digesting the Prime Minister’s interventions as the self-appointed spokesman for the police investigators! The Prime Minister has a duty to ensure that the investigation is not derailed, but at this point in time – as a result of his public interventions regarding the investigation – he is the greatest threat to this happening. This leads to one simple question: whom is he trying to shield?

He could be shielding even himself, if not the obvious ones close to him. In any normal unfettered police investigation, all those about whom Daphne wrote would be suspects from the outset.

Hands off the investigation.