Watch: ‘Martirju Sħiħ’ – Simon Busuttil Breaks Down Tiring Ordeal To Open 17 Black Inquiry
With the 17 Black magisterial inquiry now complete and charges set to be issued, Simon Busuttil – the former Opposition Leader who personally triggered the investigation in the first place – has broken down how challenging it was to get the inquiry off the ground at all.
“Għaddewna minn martirju sħiħ (they put us through an entire ordeal),” Busuttil said on Repubblika’s show.
Busuttil requested an inquiry way back in July 2017, shortly after he announced his resignation as PN leader in the wake of a crushing electoral defeat. He said he was lucky enough that the case was assigned to Ian Farrugia.
“It isn’t easy to find a magistrate with the courage to investigate the likes of Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. We’re all people at the end of the day, and sometimes you find magistrates who are scared of them, who keep delaying or who never close the case.”
“However, we were lucky enough to immediately find Ian Farrugia straight away, who had the courage to say it should be investigated.”
Muscat, Schembri, Mizzi and others appealed the opening of the inquiry and the appeal was assigned to then-judge Antonio Mizzi.
Busuttil claimed that Judge Mizzi was visibly infuriated at being assigned this case.
“When we first entered his courtroom, he emerged in an angry state, banging his fist and shouting,” he said. “I asked Jason Azzopardi, as my lawyer, why he was shouting at much. It appeared as though he was angry that he had been assigned this case.
Busuttil then requested Mizzi’s recusal on the grounds that he was married to former PL MEP Marlene Mizzi. When Mizzi refused to step down, Busuttil filed a constitutional case to force his recusal, which he initially won but lost on appeal.
The appeal was assigned to Judge Giovanni Grixti, who ruled that the inquiry should not go ahead. A few months later, now 2019, Busuttil filed a new request for a magisterial inquiry, and this time it was accepted and integrated into an inquiry that Charmaine Galea was already conducting.
“This is just a small bit of the martyrdom we suffered as we went to court with all these insults flung at us. If it was someone who was bothered by these sorts of things, you would quickly stop. You need to have a spine to keep fighting against these people because at the end of the day, we’re all humans with our own humans. One need only look at Daphne Caruana Galizia, who paid with her own life.”
Are you surprised that it took so long for the inquiry to open?
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