Konrad Mizzi yesterday issued a document he says was sent to Panama by his financial advisors, which is contradicted, however, by a similar document that emerges from Panama Papers.
The Times of Malta came across this document from the Papers – a due diligence questionnaire – in which the box next to “estate planning” was not ticked in a list of objectives for setting up Dr Mizzi’s trust in New Zealand.
Yesterday, the newspaper highlighted that this was despite Dr Mizzi’s claim that he had set up his trust in order to hold properties in London and Sliema.
In a statement saying he would sue Times of Malta for libel, the Minister without Portfolio yesterday sent one page of a document he says his financial advisers Nexia BT submitted to intermediaries Mossack Fonseca in Panama, in which the “estate planning” box is ticked.
However, he refused to hand over a full copy of the document.
His one-pager also cited Mossack Fonseca as being the trustees, when other documents presented by Dr Mizzi himself last February recorded the trustees as being Orion Trust in New Zealand.
Contacted for an explanation of these discrepancies, Dr Mizzi refused to reply.
However, his spokesman gave comments to Malta Today. He was quoted as saying that Mossack Fonseca may have interpreted the minister’s properties in Malta and London as falling under “asset protection” rather than “estate planning generally”. “Asset protection” is ticked in the Panama Papers documentation.
The due diligence questionnaire would have then been sent without the “estate planning” box being ticked, unbeknownst to Dr Mizzi, the spokesman is quoted as saying.
The Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, also had the “estate planning” category for his New Zealand trust unticked.
According to Panama Papers, the massive data leak at the centre of which is Mossack Fonseca, the New Zealand trustees were told that Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri would be engaging in business ventures in North Africa, India, China, Dubai and other Gulf countries.
But Dr Mizzi has justified his complex financial set up – which involved a Panama company sheltered by a trust in New Zealand – by saying he would “populate it” with his assets, including a London property and rent coming from it.
The Minister without Portfolio indicated estate planning as being the prime reason for setting up the trust in an interview with The Sunday Times of Malta last February. “The properties are financial assets and I want to manage them in the best possible way. It was a family planning decision,” he said then.
Nexia BT partner Karl Cini sent scores of e-mails to Mossack Fonseca explaining Dr Mizzi’s financial set-up and the source of funds going into it but no mention was ever made of the properties.
Dr Mizzi’s income tax returns for 2013 and 2014 show rental income of €37,000.
Yesterday, Dr Mizzi said he would file a libel suit against the Times of Malta. He accused it of inventing “new angles, which clearly do not exist”, and said there was a “coordinated attack across multiple channels aimed at character assassination”.
He said the paper lied when it stated the unticked box was found in a due diligence questionnaire Nexia BT submitted – this is clearly contradicted by the document.
The Panama Papers were made available to the paper through an investigative partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.