Police find no Maltese involvement in irregular visas

A police investigation has cleared Maltese officials of involvement in the issuing of irregular Schengen visas from the Maltese Embassy in India, the Foreign Ministry has confirmed.

However, a ministry spokesman said that following an internal investigation conducted by its head office, an Indian employee who worked for the Maltese government for the past 10 years, Mohamed Akram, had been dismissed.

The Maltese High Commissioner to India, Wilfred Kenely, has returned to Malta after completing a three-year term.

Mr Kenely, a former Director-General of the Federation of Industry, was the only Maltese official in the embassy at the time of the irregularities and had overall responsibility for the issuing of visas.

Last April, Indian police said a number of irregular Maltese visas were found in possession of three arrested Indians in New Delhi.

From their investigations police established that young Indian men were paying between €5,000 and €8,000 each to the Indian ‘agents’ to be given a valid Maltese Schengen visa enabling them to enter the EU regularly. The intention of those obtaining irregular visas in India is to enter the EU regularly and then overstay as irregular migrants.

The Foreign Office said that its own internal inquiry confirmed that a number of visas from Malta’s High Commission in New Delhi had been issued irregularly and that action had been taken to deal with the situation.

However, it said the number of irregular visas was “limited” and denied the possible association of officials in the Maltese High Commission with Indian human trafficking criminal organisations.

The ministry said: “What has transpired was that, in some cases, the proper procedures required for the issuing of Schengen visas were not followed correctly”.

A confidential report from the embassy of an EU member state in New Delhi, seen by this newspaper, states that Malta issued some 1,000 visas to Indian nationals between May 2009 and February 2010 and that there was the suspicion that the majority were issued against false documents.

“Almost all these visas were issued to the same profile of ­people: men from the poor Punjab region, aged 18-35 and firsttime travellers with no knowledge of Malta,” the report states.

The ministry insisted that ­Maltese police had found no ­illegalities concerning the staff at Malta’s High Commission and explained that the Indian official was sacked as he failed to ­conform to the Schengen rules when processing the visas.

The ministry, however, did not explain why it decided not to extend Mr Kenely’s term of office in India. All the other ambassadors appointed in 2007, at the same time as Mr Kenely, were granted an extension of at least a year.