Lorry Sant

Lorry Sant (26 December 1937 – 5 October 1995) was a Maltese activist, trade unionist and Malta Labour Party politician who held a number of ministerial offices between 1971 and 1987. Sant was a controversial figure who had an aggressive and abusive leadership approach. In the 1980s, he was involved in incidents of political violence, and he has been held responsible for violating the human rights of his employees.

Early life and activism Sant was born in Paola on 26 December 1937. He studied at the Technical Institute and then worked at the Malta Drydocks. He joined the Labour League of Youths (LLY), which was the youth wing of the Malta Labour Party (MLP), and became its secretary general.

In August 1959, he became the editor of the LLY's newspaper The Struggle. After he wrote an anti-clerical editorial which commented on a February 1960 pastoral letter by Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi, Sant was interdicted by the Catholic Church on 9 April 1960. The Struggle was discontinued after nine issues, and Sant continued to contribute in The Knight, which was a publication by the MLP. who was also elected to parliament, as was his brother Salvu Sant.

Political career Commemorative Maltese inscription on a building in Valletta which translates to "This stone was laid down by the Minister Lorry Sant to commemorate that this building was built by the Labour government, 28 April 1973"

Lorry Sant was elected to Parliament for the first time in the general election of 1962. He was subsequently reelected in the next five elections, in 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981 and 1987. When the MLP was Malta's governing party between 1971 and 1987, Sant held a number of ministerial roles. including human rights violations. During his tenure as minister, Sant was hostile and aggressive to some of his employees, and in 2010 the courts found that he had breached the human rights of Renè Buttigieg who had worked as a government architect when Sant was works minister.

Sant also instigated a dispute with the Malta Football Association (MFA) because the association's president was a supporter of the Nationalist Party. The MFA had been allowed to use the national stadium at Ta' Qali after its completion, but in the early 1980s Sant prevented them from using it until they paid an annual rent of Lm 10,000.

Lorry Sant had ambitions to succeed Dom Mintoff as leader of the Labour Party, but the two had a falling out and when Mintoff resigned as Labour leader and Prime Minister in 1984 he was succeeded by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. According to his wife Carmen, Lorry Sant "still loved Mintoff and he was hurt that [he] had turned against him."

On 15 February 1982, Lino Cauchi who was the accountant of one of Sant's canvassers went missing. Three years later, on 15 November 1985, his remains were found in a well. Forensics tests later concluded that Cauchi was killed after receiving two blows to the sides of his head when still alive. The blows by a mallet that was also found in the well, fractured Cauchi's skull.

A court testimony later established that Cauchi attended at least two stormy meetings before the December election in 1981 where corrupt land deals were being discussed. When Cauchi disappeared two months later, he was in possession of potentially incriminating documents that were never found. While the murder has never been solved, Lorry Sant's canvassers are strongly suspected of orchestrating the murder, or potentially carrying out the murder themselves.

End of career and death In 1989, Lorry Sant was charged with corruption in court, but the case was abandoned after magistrate Carol Peralta ruled that although there was enough evidence to issue a bill of indictment, the crimes were time-barred. After Labour whip Wenzu Mintoff (Dom Mintoff's nephew) wanted to expel him from the party, Lorry Sant produced an envelope containing a number of photos in parliament, apparently in an attempt to blackmail either Wenzu or Dom Mintoff.