Pardoned oil trader George Farrugia insisted in court yesterday that his five brothers knew about the kickbacks he was paying to secure tenders on oil and fuel storage and procurement.

Saying several times throughout his two-hour testimony that it was “very difficult” for him to be testifying against his own brothers, Mr Farrugia said he informed them whenever any Enemalta officials asked for a share of the profits and some of them had even signed cheques to pay the bribes.

He said some €600,000 was paid in commissions to several people, as well as a vehicle costing €28,000.

He was testifying in the compilation of evidence against his brothers, Antonio, 68, Gaetano, 65, Raymond, 62, Emmanuel, 59, and Saviour, 60, who are all pleading not guilty to complicity in bribery. At the end of the sitting, Magistrate Miriam Hayman ruled there was enough evidence for the case against them to proceed.

Mr Farrugia insisted that his brothers not only knew of kickbacks being paid but even knew who was receiving them. He explained that, following negotiations with Total on oil storage, he had approached Alfred Mallia, at the time head of the Enemalta Petroleum Division, who requested they split the profits.

Mr Farrugia said he had discussed the matter with his brothers, who gave him the green light for the profit sharing agreement to go ahead.

“There was a board meeting and they were all informed about it. At the time the commission was only $0.12 per ton per month for the storage. My duty was to find new clients to buy diesel from Total.

“One possible client was Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Company, headed by Frank Sammut who also wanted a cut,” he said, adding that he offered him half of the commission on that contract, after consulting his brothers.

Payments were made in cash and on one occasion Mr Sammut was paid in kind with a Korando car for his son Jonathan.

Mr Farrugia also recalled that, when Enemalta wanted to buy 20,000 tons of diesel from the storage tanks at Ħas Saptan, Mr Mallia had asked him for commission so he informed some of his brothers before accepting. There was another tender towards the end of 1999 that was won by Total and Mr Mallia wanted his share too.

Early in 2000, Mr Mallia was injured in a traffic accident so Tarcisio Mifsud, at the time head of finance at Enemalta, asked for the commission instead.

He said some payments were issued by cheque and there were two signatories on the cheques, his and that of one of his brothers. When he worked in Ħamrun, most cheques were signed by Raymond and when he moved to the Qormi office the other signatory was either Saviour or Antoine.

There was a board meeting and they were all informed about it

He said that when auditors complained about the cheques not backed by invoices, he set up Aikon Limited and opened a bank account in Switzerland.

His brothers knew nothing about this company.

“I admit I was not transparent enough with my brothers but thanks to this arrangement my brothers were getting paid,” he said.

“They knew everything but I was not transparent enough with them.” They did not question him when commissions stopped being paid by Power Plan. “It was business as usual,” he said.

Mr Farrugia blamed businessman Anthony Debono, who was a company consultant, for the leak to the media in 2013 when the hard drive of his computer was removed while he was abroad.

The case continues next month. Lawyer David Farrugia Sacco represented the Farrugia brothers.