The tiger that bit Fearne

Corruption works like any other form of organised crime: it hurts two types of victims. There are people who try to be friendly with the mafia, flirt with it and bully others. They try to profit from its activities. They then miss some payment or quarrel and end up in trouble because no deal with the devil ends well. Contrast these with innocent victims of the mafia: the people who are hurt in the process of fighting it or accidentally step in the line of fire. Chris Fearne is no innocent victim of corruption.

Journalists investigated. We read the reports on Times of Malta. Jacob Borg worked on the story, the guy who chased Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri when their games were exposed. The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project worked on the story: the same people who in 2019 crowned Joseph Muscat that year’s man of corruption. The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation worked on the story: the organisation set up by the relatives of the journalist who chronicled the corruption of Muscat’s government up to the moment they killed her.

What did Chris Fearne do with these journalistic revelations? He took them to the police and demanded they investigate them. He publicly complained he had already reported to the police some time ago and they weren’t able or willing to find who was spreading lies about him.

And now? It now turns out that as usually happens journalists exposed what the police allowed to stay hidden. That millions of tax payer money were spent in an effort to get rid of the enemies of the corrupt. To kill – literally or metaphorically – the people who refuse to cooperate with corruption. That the police ignored the evidence of this thieving, cowardly, cruel corruption.

Chris Fearne did what Repubblika normally does. He reminded the police they needed to do their job. He broadcast from the rooftops the evidence exposed by reports. He didn’t restrain himself because “these are just allegations”. He didn’t tease us “there was no evidence”. He didn’t squirm because they’re all nationalists at the Times, because Daphne’s children hate Labour, and foreign journalists do David Casa’s bidding.

Why didn’t he do that? Is that not what he did when he was in government? Is that not what Labour ministers say: that journalists lie, that Daphne invented things, that it is the Nationalists who committed or invented corruption, that there’s no evidence which explains why the police do nothing?

Why is Chris Fearne now going to the police to ask them to investigate Steward because they stole public funds to get rid of him? Because now that benefits him. Because after killing Daphne corruption did not stop. Because the voracious monster of corruption never has enough and turns to eat its parents. Because Chris Fearne is bitten too. Chris Fearne spoke on corruption because Chris Fearne has been bitten by it.

Now is a good time for Chris Fearne to speak. He made sure to say no more than would give him advantage.

Quite the contrary. Consider the audacity of using these revelations to justify his actions conflating the fake stories planted on him by Steward with the accusations he’s facing in court. The ones have no relationship with the others. The fake stories said he profited from selling passports. Nobody charged him in court with profiting from selling passports. He was charged with profiting from selling hospitals.

Consider his audacity has he proclaims his innocence. Watch Michael Falzon who is facing other allegations he wants to dodge bemoan the fate of his friend Chris Fearne. Watch Robert Abela describe Chris Fearne as a victim. They’re again talking about making him EU Commissioner.

Even as they cry because they’ve been lied about they lie to an entire country. Corrupt to their very core.

Chris Fearne claims he is a victim of corruption when he failed to do anything to fight it. Worse, he helped it and nurtured it. He opened the doors to it and defended it. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Ram Tumuluri, the crook who stole millions from us. Shoulder to shoulder with Armin Ernst, that whore who leapt from Vitals laps straight into Steward’s sucking off the legionnaire and the barbarian on the same day. He told us he had a real deal with these people.

You know what Chris Fearne could have done that you and I could not? He could have stopped the Vitals / Steward contract. He could have revealed what was going on. He could have exposed the corruption. He could have informed the public who voted him and paid him with the reasons he was fighting Steward behind the scenes. He was a government minister. He was Deputy Prime Minister. He was and remains the Labour Party Deputy Leader.

What did he do? He shut up.

And Chris Fearne’s cowardice, his deeply rooted corruption does not stop there. He still minces his words. He criticised the police for failing to investigate what journalists found. But he said nothing about the fact that the people who used public funds to harm him were clients of Joseph Muscat. That this attempt on his character, this effort to politically eliminate him, happened to cover up the corruption that lined the pockets of Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, and Konrad Mizzi.

Why the half measures? Because apart from being a corrupt coward, Chris Fearne is utterly free of moral fibre. Because to him it’s party above all else. Because for him it is more important to be Labour than his very personal dignity. Because he’s ok with Joseph Muscat cheating and stealing, he’s ok with people stealing public money even if it’s to lie about him: but he will never let a Labour supporter imagine he is anything less than the biggest Laburist of them all.

Chris Fearne presents himself as a charismatic and smart intellectual. But he is the most disgustingly irrational fanatic: the Laburist till I die sort that is happy to be smacked around but will not stop waving the party flag. We might be shocked by the few hundred pensioners who wank at Manwel Cuschieri and lionise Joseph Muscat even if they know he stole.

Chris Fearne is worse. Someone stole millions of public funds to publish fake news about Chris Fearne in a Pakistani newspaper claiming he took bribes from a Russian oligarch for a passport. We now know that someone was Steward, contractors who bribed Muscat and others to turn three public hospitals into a dump. And Chris Fearne equivocates to make sure the Labour Party looks good despite the devastation it wrought on Malta’s health service system.

How obsessed need you be?

Apparently when Muscat had to resign as prime minister he tried behind the scenes to get a deal with Fearne where Fearne would guarantee nobody would touch Steward or Muscat. Apparently Fearne refused to promise anything to Muscat. Muscat hit back by campaigning for Robert Abela.

Fearne is now telling us this shows he’s a man of integrity because he refused to sign a deal with the devil, Muscat, to replace him as prime minister. Look what sacrifice he did. He never made prime minister.

What did Chris Fearne do instead? He repeated a speech in his leadership campaign assuring everyone that for as long as he lived the Nationalists would never make it to government. Labour forever. Even if it is corrupted to let three hospitals to be taken away. Even if allows public money to be used to generate lies against the deputy prime minister in Pakistani newspapers. Even if the lies are about him.

Chris Fearne wants us to join him in mourning over the harm done to him. Because he did nothing to deserve it. Wrong. Chris Fearne is no innocent victim. He should be crying over the hurt he caused people needing medical help even as he was their minister and their doctor.

When a thief cheats from a liar, they can do their own crying.

MANUEL QAL, Season 1 Episode 26

Written by Manuel Delia
Video Production: Michael Kaden / NEWZ.mt