Charles CroninA former official of the FIAU, the government’s anti-money laundering agency, was not given any reason for his dismissal after he was told last month not to report for work any longer, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
Speaking to this paper, Charles Cronin, the former head of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit’s Compliance Section, said his dismissal, while he was still on probation, came totally out of the blue.
“I was heading out to lunch when I was summoned by the deputy director to the director’s office at the FIAU. Both men told me that my contract had been terminated,” Mr Cronin said.
READ: Top FIAU officials sacked as PN says Malta 'is now a lawless country'
The secretive agency has been in the eye of a political storm ever since a number of investigative reports into Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi’s offshore financial dealings were leaked. The reports raised suspicions that the two men were involved in criminal activity.
Another leak was of a report carried out by the compliance section at Pilatus Bank. As a result, a number of current and former FIAU officials have been summoned before Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, who is investigating the leak following a criminal complaint filed by the bank.
Asked if his dismissal was linked to any of these leaks, Mr Cronin said both the director and his deputy made it clear that it was not the reason.
They told me that my contract had been terminated
Mr Cronin, who joined the agency last October, was told on June 16 that he should not even complete his one-week notice period. Never was he given any indication that the agency was not happy with his work, he said.
He questioned why the director, or his deputy, had not signalled any concerns they may have had about his performance during his “informal” six-month review.
His dismissal, together with that of Jonathan Ferris, who headed the FIAU Financial Analysis Section, came just days after Finance Minister Edward Scicluna questioned if the agency’s reports were written to be leaked.
Asked for his reaction to Prof. Scicluna’s claim, Mr Cronin said the reports from his section were the product of a rigid checklist analysis, without much scope for interpretation.
The former FIAU official said he would place himself pretty low on the list of potential leak suspects.
“I never even read the Pilatus report. It was drafted and despatched several months before I arrived at the FIAU, and possibly under the watch of the previous manager,” he said.
Mr Cronin said that Compliance Section reports simply listed the on-site inspection team’s findings. Mainly, these reports were based on a checklist analysis of a sample of customer files.
Asked if the FIAU should have responded to claims by the Finance Minister that certain reports were “written to be leaked”, Mr Cronin said the FIAU did not have a communications strategy, and was wary of communicating with the press.
While acknowledging that Prof. Scicluna was ultimately the boss, he pointed out that the FIAU was an autonomous agency, led by the board, and ““not subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority”.
The FIAU Board is chaired by the Attorney General, who has been criticised for failing to ensure the FIAU’s investigations of Mr Schembri and Dr Mizzi were followed up by the police. The AG, Peter Grech, has insisted that reports passed to the police do not go through his board.
Werner Langen, head of the European Parliament’s Panama Papers investigative committee, this week sent a formal letter demanding to know why the two FIAU officials were dismissed without justification.
In response to Mr Werner’s letter, Prof. Scicluna justified the sudden sackings by saying their employment was terminated during their probationary period, according to law.