Rogue oil trader George Farrugia’s legal team is not alarmed by the Prime Minister’s statement that would not exclude the possibility of withdrawing their client’s presidential pardon.
The lawyers noted that what the Prime Minister said on TVM’s Dissett on Thursday was “legally correct”.
“The Prime Minister was legally correct because the pardon came with a number of conditions and, if these are not respected, a procedure will kick in to have it withdrawn. The comment doesn’t mean anything, really, because you cannot exclude something that should never be excluded,” said Siegfried Borg Cole and Franco Debono when contacted yesterday.
Mr Farrugia, the star witness in the Enemalta fuel procurement scandal, which surfaced shortly before the general election last March, was given the pardon by President George Abela on the advice of then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi.
Mr Farrugia has already testified for hours on end before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, which is probing the shortcomings flagged by the Auditor General in his report on Enemalta’s oil procurement between 2008 and 2011.
He was the local representative of international commodities giants Trafigura and Totsa, with the latter winning the lion’s share of Enemalta’s oil contracts during the period in question.
Mr Farrugia testified that he had paid Mr Sammut about $100,000 and Mr Tabone had received about $400,000, some of which he shared with Mr Sammut.
Former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone and Frank Sammut, who ran the Petroleum Division as adviser to Mr Tabone, are both pleading not guilty to corruption charges in connection with the scandal. They have been summoned to appear before the PAC but have filed a constitutional application contesting a ruling by the Speaker, Anġlu Farrugia.
Dr Farrugia decided that witnesses before the PAC had to reply to every question except those they believed could incriminate them. They are objecting to the part of the ruling where Dr Farrugia decided that it was the Speaker who would determine what was incriminating or not.