You’re under arrest. No, wait, you’re not…

"The Commissioner of Police's loyalty is not towards this country, but towards the prime minister. We have a commissioner of police who stopped, for political reasons, charges against Dalli because of his loyalty towards who appointed him. There was political interference in this case."

Sounds like the basic plot of a John Grisham novel, doesn't it? Also distinctly reminds me of the curious case of the De Gray in the nighttime. But this is not fiction. This is the word of one Simon Busuttil, Opposition leader, and he was talking about the present Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit, who replaced outgoing John Rizzo last April.

But just imagine for a second that it wasn't Simon Busuttil who said that. Imagine it was something I wrote in one of my articles. Why, there would probably be a policeman knocking on my door before I even hit the return button...

Hullo, someone's knocking at the door. What a coincidence. And... what's with all those red, white and red lights flashing outside my window, anyway...?

[Forty-eight hours later]

...So, as I was saying before being suddenly and unexpectedly whisked away for a free two-day sojourn at the Floriana Police Depot Bed and Breakfast... if I (who am but dust and ashes, etc.) were to even think of setting down such a bald indictment of the Police Commissioner in writing, and then printing it in a newspaper... you could rest assured that the consequences would be serious. Luckily for me, I can get away with it in this particular instance. Why? Because of 'parliamentary privilege', that's why. Which in practice means that even one such as myself - who am still but dust and ashes, despite all the very plausible reasons to believe otherwise - can get away with viciously maligning the Police Commissioner, or anyone else for that matter, with a completely unsubstantiated statement based only on hearsay... so long as I am quoting something that was uttered aloud by any MP in the House of Representatives.

And don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. In fact I rather appreciate the fact that this particular symptom of our antediluvian hangover from Colonial Britain actually works out to my advantage for a change. For once, the influence of the British Crown on our very non-British legal system serves a purpose that doesn't actually tie the press's hands and strap masking tape to its collective mouths.

But at the same time, even I, who benefit from this situation, can still see that it is... um... how can it put this? WRONG. Not only is this practice woefully unfair on the recipient of the allegations in question... but in a country where verbal violence is the only way we actually know how to do politics, this sort of thing is also an open invitation to the sort of recriminatory war of attrition that makes Armageddon look like a Bruce Willis movie, or something.

But let's take another look at the claim itself, shall we?   

Busuttil was referring to testimony by John Rizzo in the ongoing case against Silvio Zammit. The former Commissioner testified that 'he and the AG'... a turn of phrase which incidentally reminds me of 'me and Bobby McGee'...  'wanted' to press criminal charges against former EU Commissioner John Dalli.

Got that, folks? So Rizzo and the AG wanted to arrest J.D. (And yes, it is now beginning to sound distinctly like a gangster rap number.) Which is of course why a number of people, myself included, are sort of somewhat slightly perplexed. What I in particular don't understand is... well, it's not as though Rizzo and the AG didn't have ample opportunity to act on that desire, if it's what they really wanted to do. They are, after all, the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General. If they felt there was evidence to issue an arrest warrant for John Dalli... why the bleeding hell did they not issue any such arrest warrant in so many months?

Chronology, in this instance, becomes a useful ally to those among us who don't actually have 'parliamentary privilege' to cover their asses when spewing highly libelous claims about others. So let's recap:

John Dalli resigned in October 2012. Silvio Zammit was arraigned in December 2012. The OLAF report (which resulted in the charges against Zammit) was in the AG's possession immediately after Dalli's resignation, and it was passed onto the Malta Police (i.e., Rizzo) on 15 October 2012.

Labour came into power in March 2013. Rizzo stepped down in April 2013; Peter Paul Zammit took his place that same month. Almost immediately upon his appointment, Zammit said there was no case against Dalli; and we had to wait another... oooh, seven months for John Rizzo to finally come forward and contradict him on that score with his testimony last Monday.

Incidentally, Zammit is the only person to date who has been charged in connection with the attempted bribery.

At which point a lot of questions have to be asked, really. Questions like: if both the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General genuinely believe that there was enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant for both Dalli and Zammit, on the basis of the OLAF report which has been in their hands since the very beginning.... why did they only arrest Zammit? I hate to say it but it sounds awfully like the old story of arresting the small fry while letting the mastermind off the hook.

Meanwhile the reason cannot have been (as the usual suspects have all separately claimed) because, unlike Zammit, Dalli was not actually around in Malta to be served with the warrant. Local arrest warrants can still be issued for persons who are not physically present in the country at the time... and if they really meant business, Rizzo and the AG could also have issued a European arrest warrant, or sent a formal request for extradition through the usual channels. They could have done both simultaneously. It's not as though they've never done these things before: it's ordinary business in the law enforcement world.

Yet they did nothing of the kind for three whole months... except issue charges against only one of the three suspects concerned, when we now hear that they had evidence on at least one other, too. 

This brings me to another question. Rizzo himself may be unable to take any action, no longer occupying the role of Police Commissioner. But the AG is still occupying that same position to this day. If he still believes there is evidence to arraign Dalli... why isn't he trying to do precisely that right now? Because of political interference, you say? Then... why doesn't he resign? That's what happens in the real world, when people occupying sensitive positions find they cannot do their job because of political interference.

There is more. Assuming that there was political interference in the decision not to charge Dalli with any crime - and I stress the word 'assuming', because once again I don't enjoy the same immunity to criminal prosecution that the State accords to Simon Busuttil - and bearing in mind also that this decision must clearly have been taken around December 2012 (i.e., when the Police Commissioner and the AG both examined the OLAF report and determined that there was enough evidence to charge Zammit) - well, who had the sort of political power to stage that kind of interference in the police's work at the time?

I find it hard to believe this could have been Manuel Mallia, or anyone else connected with the Labour Opposition. It could only have been someone within the Nationalist government... yet the very idea that the Nationalist government would pass up even the tiniest opportunity to wreak destruction onto this man named 'John Dalli', whom they evidently hate so very, very much... sorry but this is just too ridiculous for words.

This last detail brings me to another dimension to all this, which I am beginning to think Busuttil hasn't thought about at all.

One year after Dalli's forced resignation - and all the emails and SMSes that emerged as a result, illustrating the sheer depth of visceral hatred within the PN towards a man whose primary crime (lest we forget) was ultimately to challenge Lawrence Gonzi for the leadership in 2004 - well, the PN may have changed its leader, but the same style of leadership that proved so ruinous in Gonzi's case is still evidently there. It's called defecating on your own dinner plate... declaring war on your own allies, alienating your own assets, and basically just pushing away anyone who is not part of the inner sanctum clique.

Simon Busuttil probably doesn't credit people like me with all that much intelligence - I am after all not a Nationalist Party die-hard, and have never been one... and let's face it, the party only ever listens to its own hard-boiled interior, and nothing else.

But even numbskulls like myself have a pair of eyes and ears in our heads, you know. We notice things... like, for instance, how Busuttil echoes in parliament what certain blogs say online. We notice that when the blogger speaks, the PN leader squeaks. If this is how Simon Busuttil intends to rebuild his shattered party ahead of the next election... alienating former (and in some cases actual) allies, because that is what is expected of him by the people who put him there for reasons of their own... well, something tells me he'll be in for a nasty, nasty shock in five years' time.