An Open Letter to Reuters Institute – what has happened to your credibility? THIS IS AN OPEN LETTER

During my days as an apprentice up-and-coming journalist I was ALWAYS instructed that when all else fails, when truth becomes elusive – the bible to follow is Reuters, truthful, honest and upstanding.

Now, in my dotage, I am beginning to revise and reconsider my apprenticeship teaching.

The other day, “The Times of Malta” (yes, I know – a totally unreliable source, but still) carried an item that a report issued by Reuters Institute reveals that Malta is one of the countries that has “recorded a backlash” against journalists in the wake of the Panama Papers.

What “backlash” may I ask? To bolster their contention the Institute cited the murder of Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia since she “revealed” Panama Papers “leaks”.

Is the Institute aware that one of those “leaks” revealed by Caruana Galizia was an allegation that Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his wife Michelle were the owners of a Panama-registered company called Egrant?

Is the Institute aware that a Magisterial Court Inquiry requested by the PM concluded the allegations were a pack of lies based on false statements, false documents and faked signatures (established by foreign labs)?

Is the Institute aware that this must surely go down as one of the most dastardly frame-ups fabricated in a democratic country intended to besmirch its Prime Minister, his wife and his family?

Is the Institute aware that this was the self-same Caruana Galizia who when former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff died a few years earlier, had written in her Blog the wish to go and dance on his grave and drink champagne, as well as wishing him “to rot in hell”?

Is the Institute aware that in her blogging career Caruana Galizia had insulted, slighted and made allegations against scores of Labour Party politicians and had shortly before her death also made seriously frightening allegations against a man who was contesting the Leadership of the Party she backed i.e. the Nationalist Party, alleging he had banked €1 million in legal advice earnings from a Soho brothel in a secret Channel Islands’ account? Obviously, she didn’t like him and wanted the former Leader (her pet poodle) to remain.

Is the Institute aware that for such performances, Caruana Galizia has had a hall named after her in the EU Parliament on the instigation of its President, Antonio Tajani, the same Tajani who is a close buddy of Silvio Berlusconi? And who is Silvio Berlusconi – he is the man who was temporarily suspended from Italian politics because of corruption; he is also the man alleged to have orchestrated the Bunga-Bunga parties, with a prime witness (a Moroccan model) having recently died from being poisoned just days before she was to give evidence in a trial against Berlusconi and the Bunga parties.

Finally, is the Institute aware that just a few days ago Nationalist Party Euro MP David Casa had his lawyer in Court (a Nationalist Party MP and former Nationalist Government Minister) press the editor of a newspaper to reveal the source of a whistleblower who made extremely serious allegations against Casa, pressure that goes against EVERY tenet of media freedom and democracy?

ALL these facts – yes, facts and NOT conjectures – seem to be conveniently beyond Reuters Institute radar screen and that their sole concern is their conjecture that somehow Caruana Galizia’s murder was connected to the Panama Papers when in fact three persons with known criminal records are undergoing compilation of evidence, probably leading to a trial in which they will be accused of her alleged murder after evidence compiled by the Malta Police, the FBI, Dutch criminology experts and Europol.

There was once an agency known as Reuters that one was told one could rely on.

How times have changed.

Perhaps the time has come for you to revise your Reuters correspondent/s in Malta and your sources of information.

I am posting this piece on my Blog page today to inform the general public in the manner in which they should be informed.

ALBERT JEROME FENECH