A man returns home unexpectedly and finds his wife in the bedroom with another man. Both are standing fully clothed but with their hands on the other’s hips, eyes locked in a mutually admiring gaze. The husband accuseshis wife of adultery, who stares at him with indignation.

“Adultery? Are you seeing me kissing him? Are we naked and in bed?” She adds that it was always her intention to declare that she had stood in the bedroom with this man. Besides, lots of people stand close to strangers, touching, while looking into their eyes. On crowded trains, for example, and even in church during the exchange of peace.

The husband protests that she’s alone in the house with a stranger. In the bedroom. Hands on his hips, eyes looking into his. She loses her patience.

“I’ve already addressed that point! You are drawing a string of malicious inferences from a number of coincidences! Yes, perhaps I’ve been naïve but I’ve always worked hard for you. Who are you going to believe – me or your lying eyes?”

When it comes to Konrad Mizzi and the Panama Papers, the majority of Maltese and international observers have already decided to trust their lying eyes. But what about a thoughtful Labour MP, who truly wants to believe Mizzi (and Keith Schembri) if at all possible, given that the alternative is sickening?

When Panamagate broke several weeks ago, this column considered what just such a thoughtful Labour MP might make of Mizzi’s story then – the initial inconsistency of the stated motives, the less than forthcoming admissions and then only in response to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s revelations – all since confirmed and not denied by Mizzi.

What do the Panama Papers add to such an MP’s concerns? Internationally, Mizzi is being bracketed with the undeniably corrupt. The Panama companies are being assumed, by leading newspapers around the world, to signify criminal intent and activity when owned by politicians.

Meanwhile, Mizzi has not denied seeking to open a bank account in Dubai and in Panama, failing to do so only because the banks turned him down.

When faced with all this, Mizzi has offered a defence.

First, he insists that the Panama Papers show that he is unlike all the other people caught in the net. He has no bank accounts. The Panama Papers show that what he’s said has been true all along (although he refused to answer why he twice sought to open a bank account).

Is Mizzi justified in saying the papers exonerate him? Or is this case like that of the errant husband who makes a pass at two of his wife’s friends, only to be rebuffed by each of them? Both report him to his wife. She confronts him with his attempted adultery. The husband denies that he has ever committed adultery and triumphantly points out that his wife’s friends actually confirm his story.

The Panama companies are being assumed, by leading newspapers around the world, to signify criminal intent and activity when owned by politicians

True, but that doesn’t mean he’s honest and trustworthy. Besides, you can still go to jail for attempted bribery, attempted robbery and attempted murder.

The thoughtful Labour MP has to find a flaw with these analogies. He or she will need to find it soon. People need to hear why Mizzi’s case is different. Otherwise, the Labour government will not be trusted as long as Mizzi remains part of it.

Second, Mizzi has not denied that the banks that turned him down were told that the source of his money would have been from consultancy and brokerage. Yet, as minister, there is no private consultancy or brokerage that he can offer.

Nor has he denied Caruana Galizia’s claim that, when seeking to acquire his Panamanian company, his application ticked the box calling for secrecy.

What he has said is that he didn’t fill in the forms himself. His representatives did. Is this like saying that he has never sued Caruana Galizia because his lawyers did all the paperwork?

If the analogy is flawed, our Labour MP had better point it out fast. From where the rest of the world is standing, it’s a basic principle of law and democracy that your legally-authorised representatives act on your behalf and you are legally and politically responsible for what they do on your behalf.

Mizzi has also said that consultancy and brokerage is a standard term used in the circumstances. No one disputes that. It’s a standard term also used as a euphemism to cover graft. But is he really saying that no bank will accept the reasons he has given in Malta – management of inheritance or a London property?

The Labour MP deserves an answer to that, if Labour is to stick its neck out on behalf of Mizzi.

And, if Mizzi opened up the company to handle his earnings after his life in politics, the MP deserves to know whether Mizzi was not planning to stay the course till the next general election.

If he was, indeed, planning to stay till the next general election, why was the company opened a full three and a half years before Mizzi could plausibly need it (that’s assuming that he’d exit from politics right after the election)?

The MP needs to know so as not to look a fool before the journalists who will undoubtedly stalk and haunt every Labour MP for an opinion on the matter.

The problem for our thoughtful Labour MP is this. The issue is no longer one that can be explained in terms of Maltese naivety about international financial arrangements. Nor can it be explained in terms of tribal politics.

Two banks are documented to have been afraid of touching Mizzi’s wealth. The banks themselves – which are untouched by the sins of tribalism and naivety – must surely have had their own very good reasons for doing so.

Mizzi himself retorts that he is not afraid of a tax audit of his New Zealand trust. However, that is no consolation for our MP, when he reads that New Zealand’s Labour leader, Andrew Little, has said this of the country’s trusts:

“We don’t know what’s in them, we don’t know the size of the assets put into those trusts, we don’t know the origin of the assets that go into those trusts.”

In the circumstances, the Labour MP can be forgiven if Mizzi’s offer of a tax audit sounds like a demand to believe him, who has always been faithful, and not the faithless world’s lying eyes.

ranierfsadni@europe.com