Updated: Farrugia hides behind ‘no comment’ on PN’s call for resignation

“I will not comment before the Attorney-General decides whether to appeal or not,” Farrugia told MaltaToday when contacted early this afternoon.

“The only thing I would say is: ‘Does the PN justify that that voters are threatened and coerced to vote PN?,” he concluded.

Earlier today, the PN had accused Labour deputy leader for parliamentary affairs Anglu Farrugia’s behaviour in the election rigging case as “deplorable, and not suitable for somebody who holds the post of party deputy leader of a political party.”

“Muscat and the PL should disassociate themselves from what Farrugia has done and apologise with the Maltese people since in the last election they created another lie so as not to accept the people’s verdict and to the judiciary, on which the Labour Deputy Leader had created a negative impression,” the PN insisted.

Pierre Bartolo, 44 of Swieqi, a director of Papillon Caterers, had been accused of threatening two employees and ordering them to vote Nationalist, in a case instituted by Labour deputy leader Anglu Farrugia, who claimed he had received several reports of persons who were paid to vote Nationalist.He was found not guilty by a court earlier this week.

Farrugia had compiled a dossier of allegations on the subject – mostly from employees of companies who claimed they were threatened or somehow coerced into voting Nationalist – and submitting it for the consideration of the Police Commissioner. In a press conference in June 2008, Farrugia alleged the involvement of a full-blown organised criminal racket, suggesting that anything between €1 million and €2 million may have changed hands for votes. He also claimed that ‘takers’ were given mobile phones with which to photograph their ballot sheet in the polling station as ‘proof’; and presented the police with some 50 mobile phone pictures taken by people allegedly paid or bullied to vote PN.

The PN described Farrugia’s actions in this case as “dangerous”, especially when this person was expecting that sometime he would be elected deputy Prime Minister. The PN claimed that Farrugia first made “a campaign of allegations on practices in the last General Elections as he did not want to accept the people’s verdict – as he did not want to accept the people’s verdict – and accused with corruption."

However, according to the PN, Farrugia had first been proven wrong by the witnesses that were presented in Court, which did not find “any evidence” in what he had claimed. “Instead of accepting the Court’s verdict and apologise for throwing negative shadow on innocent persons and instead of apologising with Maltese people for putting a shadow on the freest exercise in a democracy, a general election, the Labour deputy leader attacked the Courts after the judgement had belied what he had alleged,” the PN said.

The PN asked a number of questions, including whether Farrugia thought that he was “beyond the Law Courts”, whether he thought that as he was a deputy leader of a political party, he should have “a privileged treatment from the Courts and the Judiciary”, and whether Farrugia thought that he had the right to “accuse innocent persons and tarnish their reputation in front of society”.

In its statement, the PN said Farrugia’s behaviour showed “how the Labour Party would behave if it was trusted with responsibility. The Labour Party still believed that power was an instrument with which it would do what it wants, for its own needs, not for people”.

The PN charged that Farrugia was continuing to show “lack of serious respect” for the rules of democracy and the independence of the judiciary, one of the highest organs of the State.

The party statement explained how in front of “dangerous behaviour” of Farrugia, the PL and its leader Joseph Muscat had remained “silent. This is not acceptable,” the PN charged.

“The PL, which issues five statements every day, was not capable of issuing a statement condensation for Farrugia?” the PN asked.

The PN also asked whether the PL was not capable of condemning its own deputy who, with his behaviour, had clearly shown that he did not have “any respect for the democratic rules”.

“Since he did not say anything, does this mean that Muscat approves what Farrugia has done?” the PN asked.

The PN also asked whether Farrugia was going to continue occupying the second highest rank in the PL “as if nothing happened?” The PN noted that until now, Farrugia had always occupied the post of Acting Deputy Leader when Muscat was abroad.