If Robert Abela Knows Nothing About Karl Gouder’s Death, Why Make A Connection At All?
Rumours are abounding in certain circles regarding Karl Gouder’s sudden death and Prime Minister Robert Abela added fuel to the fire last night.
Taking questions from journalists, Abela took aim at a “small clique of people” who misuse online platforms to serve hidden interests and who treat people in their way as collateral damage.
And then, without being prompted to do so at all, the Prime Minister referred to the death of Karl Gouder.
He stressed that he doesn’t know anything about the case that isn’t already in the public domain but also said there are lessons to be learned from it.
“However, if we allow this episode and other previous ones to go by as though they were nothing, it would mean that we wouldn’t have learned anything,” he said, before urging society to take a stand against the unnamed clique of people.
This is a strange comment, because there is practically zero information in the public domain about the circumstances leading up to Gouder’s death. What lessons can be learned beyond a realisation that everything is not always as it seems?
The most we have is a police report filed by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who warned that Gouder was threatened shortly before his death but admitted he doesn’t have any tangible proof to back up his claim.
Abela’s remark linking Gouder’s death to “abuse” of free speech is also strange seeing as Gouder was by no means a controversial figure in public life.
The only sort of public criticism Gouder faced after he decided to run for the PN secretary general role was an article by PL activist Neville Gafà, who mocked him as a “mascot of pigging out” because he had twice been co-opted to Parliament.
However, Gafà stressed that he never spoke to Gouder in his life, let alone threatened him. In either case, Abela’s remark didn’t seem to be directed at Gafà but at people opposed to the government. In fact, Abela said that these unnamed people started their strategy by attacking him personally before expanding their scope.
So the Prime Minister must be implying some kind of private warning or threat made to Gouder by a person or group of people who are also very critical of Abela.
If Abela has any kind of information about what could have led to Gouder’s death, he should be upfront about it and inform the authorities and the public.
Otherwise, this implication of secret undercurrents would just be a way of isolating his critics and hanging them out to dry for personal political mileage – ironically what he himself is accusing them of doing.
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