The International ‘Man Of The Year’ Award For Corruption And Organised Crime Goes To… Joseph Muscat
Outgoing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has won the dubious award of ‘Man of the Year in Organised Crime and Corruption’ by an international crime watchdog association.
The Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project have handed out the annual award to notorious leaders and institutions before, including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Romanian Parliament, but Muscat nabbed it in 2019.
“Under Muscat’s leadership,” the OCCRP said, “criminality and corruption have flourished — and in many cases gone unpunished — in the small Mediterranean archipelago of Malta, creating an environment that led to the 2017 murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, investigators and government critics say.”
It was a busy 12 months in the world of organized crime and corruption. But without further ado, here is our 2019 Person of the Year: https://t.co/oDVXs9EZYI#occrpaward #CorruptActor2019
— OCCRP (@OCCRP) December 27, 2019
There were a number of key reasons that garnered Muscat the number one spot.
Among them were the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the revelations of a network of offshore companies related to some of his most trusted officials, and “large-scale criminal interests” that have a “grip” on the island.
The report went on to say that Muscat’s “failed political leadership” was “shaking the foundations of freedom of speech and rule of law in the European Union”.
He beat out other finalists including US President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, and Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, the son of the longtime president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Do you think Muscat deserves to be named the man of the year in organised crime and corruption?
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