Updated 0833 – Newspaper Review
Malta Today leads with claims by Vince Muscat that lawyer David Gatt made contact between 2014 and 2015about a plot to kill Daphne Caruana Galizia. The state witness said he later drove George Degiorgio to meet with minister Chris Cardona.
The Times follows the testimony of self-confessed hitman Vince Muscat who revealed an aborted plot to gun Daphne Caruana Galizia down with a rifle in 2015. The plan fell through when the commissioners failed to plan a €50,000 deposit.
The Independent reports on details that emerged in court about a planned assassination of a police officer some years ago. Witness Vince Muscat did not identify the target but said that the job was linked with the Maksar brothers and their associate Jamie Vella.
In-Nazzjon says that state witness Vince Muscat said that a serving Cabinet minister was involved in an important crime. Opposition spokesperson for justice Karol Aquilina called on the Prime Minister to identify the minister.
L-Orizzont speaks with Prof. Charles Scerri, an expert in the field of dementia, who said he was saddened by a recent case of a man with the condition being fined for not wearing the mask properly.
The Times asks Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà about comments he made in February that no politicians were linked to the Caruana Galizia assassination. The Commissioner said that the admissible evidence, at that point, did not indicate involvement by politicians.
Malta Today says that the Qormi local council proposed plans for an underground tunnel beneath the Mrieħel bypass for fast-moving traffic through the area, leaving the surface road for slow-moving traffic heading into the Central Business District.
L-Orizzont carries a story about a 28-year-old woman from Illinois, USA, who died from Covid-19. Her cousin, Kevin Pulis, described her as the most fearless person he knew, who had battled cancer twice as well as a lung transplant.
The Independent says that 86 percent of people over 80 years and 80 percent of people considered vulnerable have received the Covid-19 vaccine. Nine in ten of medical front-liners have also been inoculated.
In-Nazzjon reports the death of three patients with Covid-19, two women aged 70 and a man aged 73. The paper says there have now been 42 victims of the virus since the start
Morning Briefing
Plans to gun Daphne Caruana Galizia in place since 2015 – Vince Muscat
In another shocking session at the Law Courts yesterday, Vince Muscat, known as Il-Koħħu testified that the men who eventually killed Daphne Caruana Galizia had started working on a plan to gun her down using an AK47 rifle two years before they eventually assassinated her as part of a separate murder plot. This plot had fallen through when a €50,000 deposit was never paid.
Muscat said that the plot was linked to lawyer David Gatt and former minister Chris Cardona.
Throughout the testimony, Muscat also brought up the HSBC heist of 2010, saying that the the killers were involved in a very big job which involved not only Cardona but also “a sitting Minister”. The group were given footage by a bank insider showing them how to get access to the bank’s control room, footage which was provided by the person believed to be a politician.
Later, Prime Minister Robert Abela has asked the Police Commissioner to establish whom Vince Muscat (il-Koħħu) was referring to during the Compilation of Evidence of brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio.
Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà explained his declaration that “every person involved” in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder has been caught and that there was “no evidence that politicians were involved” to refer to the ‘evidence’ available rather the ‘intelligence’ that the police had.
MAM President seeks to calm minds on Astra Zeneca
Only a few problems were reported with the Astra Zeneca vaccine and these are likely to be coincidental. Martin Balzan, President of the doctors’ union sought to reassure the public on recent concerns on the Oxford vaccine.
“The best thing we can do is to wait for the report of the European Medicines Authority in order for all the information to be available; but the likelihood is that the cases are coincidental”, Balzan told The Malta Independent.
Balzan explained that from around 5 million Astra Zeneca vaccine doses given, 20 cases were reported – meaning that only one person in every 250,000 were allegedly affected.
“When this is taken in comparison to 500,000 residents living in Malta, only two people would allegedly be affected […] considering that in Malta we see three to four thrombosis cases every single day, the number is insignificant”
Covid-update
The Health Department reported 313 new cases of coronavirus in the previous 24 hours. 215 people recovered from the virus. The number of active cases has reached 3,113. 4,463 swab tests were carried out in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths linked to Covid-19 has reached 357, as Malta recorded two new deaths.
