Minister Anton Refalo\u2019s pathetic performance when questioned by Italian journalists about what he knows regarding Tot\u00f2 Riina\u2019s visits to a property he owns raises more questions than those he chose to avoid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When presented with the name of Riina, the most powerful Sicilian mafia boss in modern history, Minister Refalo replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know who he is.\u201d Anyone wishing to understand the meaning of the word omert\u00e0<\/em> need look no further than this astonishing moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The collective defence being mounted in favour of Minister Refalo is that his critics fail to mention that Tot\u00f2 Riina was alive and likely a regular visitor to Gozo at a time when Malta was governed by the Nationalist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Malta was indeed a refuge for mafia figures, there is no excuse for avoiding this historical reality. We must confront it and learn from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the fact that a government minister today feels he does not need to answer journalists\u2019 questions about whether a property he owns served as a refuge for the most powerful mafia boss, and what he knows about this, because, in his own words, \u201cit\u2019s none of my business,\u201d is not a matter of history. It is a present reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The culture of \u201cnone of my business\u201d is the very omert\u00e0 that empowers the mafia. Indifference is complicity. And when such indifference comes from those in positions of public leadership, like Anton Refalo, it helps the mafia thrive. These may be historical facts, but denouncing them must be an act in the present. Saying \u201cnone of my business\u201d today strengthens the mafia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riina killed and ordered the killing of hundreds of people, including state officials whose duty it was to uphold justice. The fact that a minister of our government \u201cdoes not know who Tot\u00f2 Riina is\u201d is reason enough for him to leave politics and return to school to learn something. Before doing so, he should publish the contract under which he acquired the house in Qala, the subject of this journalistic investigation, so that we may come closer to understanding who helped Riina find shelter in our country.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Minister Anton Refalo\u2019s pathetic performance when questioned by Italian journalists about what he knows regarding Tot\u00f2 Riina\u2019s visits to a property he owns raises more questions than those he chose to avoid. When presented with the name of Riina, the most powerful Sicilian mafia boss in modern history, Minister Refalo replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8921,"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7704\/revisions\/8921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repubblika.org\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}