The Prime Minister had used a private e-mail address to collude with foreigners in their attempts to open litigation in US jurisdictions against Maltese individuals and organisations, in order to cause them financial harm, according to MP Jason Azzopardi.
Adjourning Monday’s plenary session, the Opposition MP also took the Prime Minister to task for failing to face the media in an open question-and-answer session for months, and for stage managing his appearances so as to allow him to escape journalists via emergency exits.
He was speaking in the context of a discussion on a Bill to stop strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP).
He outlined the various SLAPP actions in which the government was implicated or involved.
On May 8, 2017, he said, Pilatus had filed a court case in Arizona against the former blogger, Daphne Caruana Galizia, through the Washington DC Lawrence Law Group. The lawsuit was filed when Ms Caruana Galizia alleged the processing of a $1 million transfer from a company based in Dubai to Ms Michelle Muscat, wife of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, with the blessing of one of the daughters of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. It was dismissed the day after she was murdered, and could have resulted in the awarding of millions of dollars in damages.
Dr Azzopardi said that the law firms Schillings of London (which had been used by Minister Konrad Mizzi prior to the Panama revelations) and the Lawrence Law Group had each written to various media houses on behalf of Pilatus Bank. The letters, sent on October 16, 2017, were to notify them of litigation beginning before UK and US courts. The Lawrence Law Group said that the bank was estimating the damages sought to be in excess of $40 million, and warned that litigation had already commenced.
Dr Azzopardi claimed that Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, was close to the owner of Pilatus Bank, and that he had known about the Arizona case that the bank had instituted against Ms Caruana Galizia. During last year’s electoral campaign, Mr Schembri had also promised to take revenge against a particular Maltese media organisation after the election, and this organisation had received a letter from the bank’s attorneys threatening to start legal action in its regard.
In light of these threats, the Maltese IT Law Association recently issued a statement, calling for anti-SLAPP legislation as a necessity, and not just a possibility. Dr Azzopardi said that it had also agreed with his suggestion that it be considered against Maltese internal policy to recognise and enforce foreign judgements which resulted from what he called “libel tourism.”