Nationalist Party candidates unite against Cyrus Engerer

Incumbent Nationalist MEPs David Casa and Roberta Metsola have hit out at Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, accusing the Labour Party leader of honouring a convicted criminal as a “hero” and of blessing vindication, abuse, and criminality. 

On Friday, Labour candidate Cyrus Engerer withdrew from the European Parliament elections race after a court of appeal overturned a first court’s acquittal and convicted him to a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years for circulating pornography and computer misuse.

The charges were filed by his former boyfriend in 2009 when Engerer was a local councillor for the PN in Sliema.

Insisting that he did not want to “cast any shadows on the Labour Party or the prime minister,” Engerer, subsequently withdrew his candidature. Engerer’s decision to put the “interest of the [Labour] movement before his own” was applauded by Joseph Muscat. The PL leader went a step further and said that Engerer’s decision proved that his “ideals are the same as those who form part of the movement.” 

However, the PN – who in 2009 did not take any disciplinary steps against their former deputy mayor – called on the prime minister to remove from the LGBT council, while on Saturday, PN Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech Adami called on Joseph Muscat to expel Cyrus Engerer from the party.

Addressing a political rally in Rabat this morning, incumbent MEP David Casa argued that Joseph Muscat’s decision to “champion a convicted criminal” undermined the judiciary because he is honouring Engerer as a “hero.”

MEP hopeful Casa further underlined that this was not the first time that the prime minister undermined one of Malta’s entities, insisting that Muscat’s treatment of the judiciary bore similarities to the treatment of the police and the army.

“The prime minister has been undermining the police and the army by carrying out political promotions, to the extent that the police depot bears resemblance to the Labour headquarters. He is now also undermining the judiciary,” Casa said. 

Fellow MEP hopeful Roberta Metsola argued that Joseph Muscat is accepting vindication, abuse, and criminal behaviour. 

Metsola also argued that Engerer’s act was “premeditated and vindictive.”

“A Labour candidate [Engerer] was convicted for distributing pornography because he entered the house of his ex-lover, stole this person’s personal data and distributed it to his employers and friends. Through this vindictive, cruel, and criminal act, he has destroyed another person,” he said.

On his part, MEP hopeful Francis Zammit Dimech argued that it is very worrying for the Labour Party and the government to treat someone criminally convicted of invading the privacy as a hero, claiming that under the government, if one were to open the dictionary, hero means criminal.