Former Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit official Jonathan Ferris has told an industrial tribunal how he had lost trust in the organisation and the people who used to run it.

In an affidavit presented in court, Mr Ferris recounted how towards the end of his eight-month stint at the government’s anti-money laundering agency, he had even resorted to locking his office door when he went to the bathroom.

Mr Ferris, a former police inspector, was informed his employment with the FIAU was being terminated during his probation period on June 16. No reasons were given to him.

He is seeking a decision from the industrial tribunal declaring that his termination was motivated by discriminatory and other inappropriate considerations.

The abrupt termination came days after Finance Minister Edward Scicluna had questioned if a number of investigative reports into the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and Minister Konrad Mizzi had been “written to be leaked”.

The former FIAU official said in his affidavit that his personal situation at the agency started to deteriorate immediately after blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia published claims by a Russian whistleblower, alleging that the Panama company Egrant is owned by the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat.

According to the Russian whistleblower, $1 million was transferred to Egrant by the daughter of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.

Mr Ferris said he carried out some preliminary research and analysis in the presence of another FIAU official.

He said he established the claimed transaction was not the same as another $1 million transaction that had been flagged by the FIAU during a compliance visit to Pilatus Bank.

On May 2, Mr Ferris said he was called in for a meeting with the FIAU’s director and deputy director.

At this meeting, he was informed he was being taken off any investigations linked to Pilatus Bank due to a “conflict of interest”, seeing that he had previously arrested and investigated whistleblower Maria Efimova over fraud claims reported by the bank.

The two FIAU officials told Mr Ferris that he would be kept “in the loop” of any developments in the case.

From that day, I lost all trust in the FIAU and the people who were in charge of it

Mr Ferris recalled in the affidavit how prior to being taken off the case, he was also instructed on April 27 to stay away from the FIAU’s offices the following Saturday due to a “confidential meeting” taking place.

Two days later, Mr Ferris received a call from a police inspector who told him that the Attorney General’s Office was inquiring about Ms Efimova, the former Pilatus Bank employee behind the Egrant claims.

Mr Ferris says in the affidavit that he was “irritated” by the Attorney General’s Office’s sudden interest in Ms Efimova, having previously found no support when the Russian filed what he termed as a “false report” against him.

On May 16, Mr Ferris said the FIAU’s deputy director informed a number of employees at a conference that they may all be called before a magisterial inquiry investigating the leak of a number of the agency’s confidential reports.

Mr Ferris says in the affidavit that he tried to investigate these leaks himself, but his efforts were frustrated by the fact that the FIAU’s system was accessible to all analysts using the simple password “12:00”.

He says in the affidavit that he had expressed his misgivings about the use of a shared password when he was hired by the FIAU the previous year.

On  May 26, a Friday night, Mr Ferris said he received a telephone call informing him that The Malta Independent had published a story about the LNG tanker in Marsa-xlokk, in what looked like another possible leak.

The story told of the FIAU’s findings that a company “connected” to the LNG tanker had transferred money to a Dubai-based company called 17 Black.

According to the leaked FIAU report, 17 Black was listed as the firm which would be paying money into Mr Schembri’s and Dr Mizzi’s Panama companies. Mr Ferris said he tried to phone up the FIAU’s director Kenneth Farrugia 14 times on the night The Malta Independent published the story.

The two men had previously agreed to immediately file a police report should any further potential leaks surface.

Mr Ferris said he confronted Mr Farrugia at work the following Monday, demanding why he had not called him back in order to file the police report as agreed.

“Farrugia told me that he had received different instructions. From that day, I lost all trust in the FIAU and the people who were in charge of it,” Mr Ferris said.

Mr Ferris said he started taking extra precautions, such as locking all his drawers and even locking his office door when he went to the bathroom.

He began to notice the “ever more frequent” presence of Superintendent Ian Abdilla at the FIAU’s office, the person who heads the police’s economic crimes unit.

“He used to mainly come after office hours, and even took to using a different service car in order to be less conspicuous,” Mr Ferris said.

He noted that despite all of the FIAU’s employees being subject to a magisterial inquiry into the leaks, Mr Abdilla continued to communicate with “certain members” of the agency.

Mr Ferris is being represented by lawyers Andrew Borg Cardona, Roselyn Borg Knight and Jason Azzopardi.

jacob.borg@timesofmalta.com

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