Trying to decipher their decisions

Mohamed Ali Ahmed Elmushraty is known to many as Lilu King. He is known to the social media milieu. He promotes himself as an entrepreneur, boxer, businessman, fashionista, artist, fitness, and events organiser. 

He has posed with a rifle or weapon next to a black Range Rover dressed in his traditional North African outfit. But otherwise, he is always dressed half-naked with oversized and super expensive sunglasses. He is known to all those who have a business in Paceville and he is also well known to the police and the courts. 

Elmushraty’s legal troubles are extensive. In August, he was accused of deliberately crashing his Mercedes into a buggy carrying his ex-girlfriend. However, his arrest was later deemed illegal due to procedural errors. 

But apart from this, he is accused of drug trafficking, money laundering and assault. I must have missed something. Oh yes, he broke his bail conditions several times! 

Then only this week, Magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo granted him bail against a €40,000 cash deposit and a €200,000 personal guarantee. Chicken feed for Elmushraty. He must have paid a similar amount to his lawyers. 

Now, we all appreciate that Lilu King is innocent until proven guilty even though he does not look like a saint to me. It is only because he is supported by a regiment of top criminal lawyers that he manages to get out on bail. And more importantly only because the judiciary seems to apply bail in mysteriously different ways. 

When Yorgen Fenech requested bail dozens of times, it was denied several times over. The judiciary was clearly conscious of the public outcry if Fenech was given bail. So, they used every rule in the book to keep Fenech behind bars. When all the legal excuses were finally exhausted they accepted his bail request on strict conditions. 

Lilu King is not good news. He is the kind of businessman who should not be driving around in Paceville as if it was his fiefdom. And on this occasion, perhaps not only this one, the police were let down by the courts. 

This is not the first time that someone out on bail repeats or commits a crime. This will not be the last time someone cried wolf. I guess all the stakeholders need to address this lacuna, without denying the right of an individual to be presumed innocent. 

The truth is that in the courts, bail is only possible if you are accompanied by some very top-notch lawyers and the accused has a deep pocket to fork out the cash guarantee. 

On the payroll again 

I have very few kind words for Mark Camilleri. He was politically appointed by Joseph Muscat to head the book council and then turned against Labour after losing his post. But why am I not surprised that he is back on the government payroll again? Camilleri has very few admirers apart from those who revel in his drivel. 

Here is a person who chose to leave Malta and then lash out at all those media houses that run newsrooms and depend on Maltese government advertising. Ironically, he then actively sought funds for himself from a government thousands of kilometres away from his current residence. 

Camilleri is practically a one-man. His venture has no full-time newsroom and his writing is infused with cruel commentary based on who has either criticised him or refused to support him or whom he personally dislikes. 

I can live with what Camilleri does or say because I have no fear of him. Neither do I care that he has illegally published privileged WhatsApp messages linked to Yorgen Fenech’s criminal case that were given to him directly by lawyer Jason Azzopardi. 

There will always be room for individuals like Camilleri in today’s world. But it is rich to see that the Maltese Government has chosen to award Camilleri a €25,000 contract for services that he has questionable competence in—services related to advising the government on commercialising the culture sector. 

Indeed, I wonder from where he draws his competence in the matter because in Camilleri’s own words, he was “not able to get a bank loan”. Mind you, Camilleri had asked me for a loan before lambasting me for months on his site when I refused. 

So, a person who cannot run a ledger and a business has been tasked to advise the Abela government on how to monetise culture. Other than the fact that Camilleri has a bizarre obsession with cryptocurrency, the dark side of global finances, I think Camilleri is better placed writing poetry about Spanish goat milk. 

Camilleri is now a tame version of his former self. He tried to emulate Caruana Galizia, but failed miserably. He now spends more time tamely reporting Labour ministers and what is happening in obscure parts of the world then lashing out with his trademark cruel talk.   

But I do know one thing; this government thinks that everybody has a price. Even someone who opted to leave his home country and take up residence thousands of kilometres away, appears to have a price. 

Sooner or later, the Abela administration will realise that you can’t buy everyone and some people will always want more!