On the front page of MaltaToday last Sunday we read about the secret agreement mapped out by MEPA supremo Lawrence Gonzi with the green slum/boathouse owners. It was yet another attempt to bridge out to a small but vociferous segment of the electorate. It was orchestrated with little pomp and with zilch press cover-age, just days before an early election. And it was fuelled not by a desire to keep promises but simply with the very uplifting desire to see Gonzi in the driving seat for yet another five years. Needless to say, the absence of any fervour in seeing to previous electoral promises was noticeable if not significant. A case in point being Eddie Fenech Adami’s cohabitation promise in 1998, which obviously was not implemented by Gonzi for the simple reason that people who live together but are not married do not have Tarcisio Barbara (the Armier lobby leader) as their voice. As expected, the prime minister who insists he has an environmental agenda, keeled over from the pressures of the Armier troglodytes. And this has contributed in no little way to confirm what a stupendously principled man our PM happens to be. So principled, that if anyone would like to squat on public land, I cannot see why they should not ask Lawrence to accommodate them. But the use of the word “secret” in describing the hush-hush pre-electoral agreement did not tickle the fancy of some people. I was reminded that there was nothing secret about the fact that the PM made a fool of himself at Armier and that this was known to hundreds of people. This could be the case, but secrecy is at the very end of the day a relative thing. It reminds me of a very well known politician who has a very well publicised love affair that is known to everyone, but not to his one and only devout wife. The secret or non-secret Armier agreement was not known to the people that counted. For example, it was not known to the conscious middle-class voters who prior to the election had hoped that Gonzi did indeed have the magic wand for the environment and wanted him so much for his supposedly green vision. Well, if allowing squatters to getaway with murder is not news, then surely there must be better news to report. But then we should know better: if the news that Gonzi bent over back-wards to accommodate the green slum gorillas was not important enough, then surely the next item is. 

And if some stories can be ignored, others just cannot simply be swept under the carpet. Which brings me to this week’s front-page story. Dead men tell no tales, but this dead man did just that before he died. It is a shocking story which I find hard to fathom because the serenity withwhich the minister for justice andhome affairs is tackling these allega-tions is mind-boggling.Here is Nicholas Azzopardi, a healthy38-year-old, who alleges just before hedied that he was brutally assaulted bypolice officers and then thrown over alow bastion into a ditch. There is more material that could be published, but at this stage I guess onehas to see if the PM will come up withthe weirdest excuse to justify why thiscase should not have been brought to the attention of the public; or rather why MaltaToday is being so irresponsible.

Lawrence Gonzi may well choose to sleep on the Armier agreement with Tarcisio, but if he decides to look the other way on this one, then really and truly we should stop writing in this newspaper and take to the valleys to become modern Robin Hoods like Salvator Giuliano.

Nicholas Azzopardi died and before he died he literally spoke a few words from his bruised body to say he was beaten and thrown over a bastion by police officers.

Yesterday Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici did not know about the case, though he said he had read something in the papers. Which goes to show how attentive our ministers have got all of a sudden. I guess this is the moment readers of this column will stand up, open the window, take a deep breath and scream at the top of one’s voice and say: ‘X’gharakuza!’

CMB said that he would check with the Police Commissioner. And he did, and CMB was told there was a magisterial inquiry taking place.

Now just in case it has not sunk in, Nicholas Azzopardi is no longer alive. According to the police he escaped from his interrogator and jumped over a wall and then down, down and down.

Azzopardi has another version, and that version does not tally with the one produced in that press release. Why Azzopardi was interviewed by the police is irrelevant. Even if he was Malta’s most notorious serial killer, which he was not, there was something that went horribly wrong.

Now it is true that CMB has just been appointed minister, but if he really thinks that he can sit back and sip his early morning tea with a biskuttin and take in the acrid stench of the Xghajra sewage, then someone should be telling the man that he has a job that needs to get done. There is something we know as political responsibility and values, and people are not expected to get hurt, or hurt themselves, or die after being questioned by the police.

If the allegations made by Nicholas Azzopardi are true then surely some heads will have to roll. If the prime minister chooses to do nothing, then I am sure many people will have no difficulty in stating that he is not fit to govern either today or tomorrow.

To return to the spectre of police brutality and murder of the times of Nardu Debono is not on. And nothing and no one in the police force should be given the slightest impression that abuse of power is OUT. The police are not above the law and CMB has an obligation to see that this does not happen.

CMB’s meek response does not match the seriousness of the case. Today Sunday he must call in the Commissioner of Police and independently look at what happened in the case of Nicholas Azzopardi. The magisterial inquiry is a separate matter, the credibility of the police and the responsibility of the politician another, and they are in the hands of the government.

Today Sunday, I expect to see a reaction to this story. And since we are at it, it would be helpful if PBS and TVM could possibly dedicate five seconds to this news item in between some scholarly feature about the breeding behaviour of the turtle dove.