The land of sleeping policemen

It seems that Malta’s more notorious sleeping policemen are not the bumps in the middle of the road that entice drivers to slow down, but the real ones who should be alert on their job, fighting and investigating crimes.

Take the case of David Cooley, a 70-year-old pensioner from Ireland, who had been severely injured by a drunk driver in Malta in 2019, and who had to use a wheelchair ever since the accident occurred. He was awarded €3.1 million damages by the Irish High Court.

The accident occurred on 5 April 2019 at 1am on Windsor Street in Sliema, when Cooley had been walking back to his hotel with his wife and friends and he was hit by a car and thrown into the air.

The driver, it seems, was never accused of anything in court – certainly a case of sleeping policemen!

Then there is the case of Ryan Schembri, former owner of the More supermarket chain, who is now facing money laundering and fraud charges – a case in which the Police dragged their feet for several years. A speeding ticket in Scotland is what ultimately landed Schembri in trouble, with an arrest warrant issued on 11 April 2022. Schembri was arrested a day later and ultimately he was extradited to Malta. It seems the road where he exceeded the speed limit had no sleeping policemen...

Earlier this week, Police Inspector Anthony Scerri of the Financial Crimes Investigation Department revealed in Court that in 2017 the UK police had informed the Maltese police that Schembri had travelled from Dubai to UK. He said he could not understand how the local authorities never acted on this information.

The police had only issued an international arrest warrant seven years after Schembri left Malta and then apparently forgot all about him. No wonder, Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech reacted by insisting that the police officer responsible for the unit be brought in to testify on the apparent inaction.

Yet another case of sleeping policemen!

In the same week, Calum Steele, president of the European Confederation of Police (EuroCOP), representing police officers across Europe was reported as saying that “there is an observed concern that there is too close a relationship between the police and the state.”

A delegation from EuroCOP was in Malta recently for a meeting with the Police Commissioner and government officials to discuss ways of creating better communication between police management and officers. Among the issues raised during the meeting was the state of ‘many’ of the country’s 70 police stations, which Steele described as “antiquated, very old-fashioned facilities”. Could it be, perhaps, that this environment lulls policemen to sleep?

Callum hit the nail on the head when he questioned whether there was enough separation between the role of the police commissioner and the government in terms of making key appointments. Aha! Could it be that the sleepier one is in the Police Force, the more the chances for promotion? One never knows!

We also had the news that three police officers had to resign after tests for cocaine produced a positive result. Perhaps, these three did not get enough sleep!

Whatever Callum says, the relationship between the Police Force and the powers that be cannot be but close in this overpopulated small island – the nation of Malta.

I do not believe that policemen do not check the relationship between a potential accused and the political background – if any – of the story. There are instances when the police tread carefully even though they should not; irrespective of whether they have had discreet ‘suggestions’ – rather than directives – by the political masters of this country.

The system has been so corrupted over the years that police do not need any prodding from politicians – they naturally sense when there is some political factor in a case.

It is incredible how in such circumstances, politicians and police officers can communicate without explicitly saying or recording in writing any words. Body language could be supreme in such circumstances.

That is a situation that tends to make policemen even sleepier.

Zelenskyy’s message

I wonder whose idea was it to invite the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to address Malta’s House of Representatives.

I suspect it was the first venture that Ian Borg pushed after being appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. He must have thought it would be yet another feather in his cap.

It was a mistake. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent EU decisions to impose sanctions on Russia were no good news for Malta.

And it is not just the price of sunflower oil and of wheat that has impacted on our cost of living. Malta has to suffer more than the increase in prices of commodities and fuel that all the countries in the world have to face.

The Maltese government skirted round the ‘cash for passport’ scheme for Russians by declaring that in the current circumstances, effective governance monitoring is not possible in the case of Russian applicants for Maltese citizenship. But the system still holds.

Then we have the problem of so many Malta registered ships involved in Russian trade – a situation that brings Malta and Greece to a stark choice: Imposing sanctions on Maltese and Greek registered ships could lead to a serious decrease of the two countries’ registered merchant ships. That is no joke either, for the EU or for Malta.

If whoever got this brainwave of inviting Zelenskyy to address Parliament thought it was a fantastic idea, the result was otherwise.

Starting with Zelenskyy’s objection to the Speaker’s reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a ‘conflict’ – saying this was a ‘war’ not a ‘conflict’ – and moving on to Zelenskyy’s reference to Russians being given Maltese passports and to the more serious issue of Maltese-flagged ships carrying Russian oil, our ministers and all our MPs must have felt some discomfort.

Luckily, since then, the EU plan to impose a ban on EU-registered ships carrying Russian oil has been ditched.

We had no answers to the ships issue, although nice words flowed out of the mouths of both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

Nice, but meaningless, of course!