A devious political strategy is at play to silence the electorate, the media and opposition parties on the basis that once an inquiry found no proof on Egrant’s ownership linking the government to Azeri transactions through Pilatus Bank, then all queries on suspicious behaviour should be quashed.

Following the publication of part of the conclusions of the inquiry, Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi claimed that both he and the chief of staff of the Prime Minister, Keith Schembri have been cleared by the magisterial inquiry.

Fact check: according to the magistrate, Schembri was found to have had two accounts in Pilatus Bank that were still open in June 2016. There is no indication in the published conclusions of what amounts were held.

Schembri was also found to have sent money from the Pilatus account to Crowe Horwath in New Zealand. Readers will recall that Mizzi had used Crowe Horwath for his personal audit on the operations of his Panamanian company hidden behind a trust in New Zealand. Such a firm is clearly not independent of the manoeuvres of Schembri and Mizzi, therefore the magisterial inquiry actually uncovered what a farce the ‘independent’ audit really was.

The legal representatives of Ali Sadr, in an attempt to halt investigations, stated that allegations against Pilatus Bank have conclusively been shown to be unfounded through the Egrant inquiry.

Fact check: page 1,420 of the inquiry states that two companies registered in Dubai – Sahra FZCO and Shams Al Sahra FZCO – were clients of Pilatus Bank and had bank accounts in Pilatus Bank. Both companies effected transactions through Pilatus Bank outside Malta, including Dubai.

The inquiry also states that the ultimate beneficial owner of Sahra FZCO are the siblings and children of the President of Azerbaijan, Leyla Aliyeva and Arzu Aliyeva. While the ultimate beneficial owner of Shams Al Sahra FZCO are Nijat and Tale Heydarov, children of the Minister of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan, Kamaladdin Heydarov.

Paragraph 26 of page 1,421 of the magistrate’s report states that the Forensic Accountants found proof that in the period mentioned by Daphne Caruana Galizia in her articles, there were multimillion transactions by Sahra FZCO from Pilatus Bank to accounts in Dubai.

This revelation confirms that the assassinated journalist was indeed on to something unheard of in Malta, multimillion transactions of the children of a dictatorship passing through a bank in Malta, needs to be seen in the context of paragraph 28 of the inquiry which states that although there was an attempt to obtain information on whether Egrant Inc., Tillgate Inc. and Hearnville Inc. had bank accounts in Dubai, no reply was received from public authorities in the UAE.

The key to unravel the links is to follow the money. If the destination of the money cannot be traced, then the investigation cannot be found to be full proof.

The magistrate also confirms on page 1,427 that from August 2015 onwards Karl Cini made various attempts with Mossack Fonseca to open bank accounts for Tillgate Inc. and Hearnville Inc.

Here too we have the inquiry refuting the relentless government spin that the two Panamanian companies owned by the trusts of Mizzi and Schembri did not own bank accounts. Can any offshore company owner not holding a bank account please stand up? There clearly was an intention to open a bank account and this too has been unravelled by the magistrate.

The magistrate reports on Vistajet, which barely a few hours after the Prime Minister requested the inquiry, had a plane that left Malta in the early hours of April 21, 2017, with no passengers to Baku and from there proceeded to Dubai.

The inquiry quotes testimony from Vistajet officials who state that the plane was requested for passengers needing to fly from Baku to Dubai. This route, Malta- Azerbaijan-Dubai mirrors the exact route of the alleged money transactions.

Secondly, the fact that it happened so close to when the story broke is in itself also suspicious. The magistrate concludes that there was no evidence of documents being transported on the flight with no passengers that left Malta, however significantly finds discrepancies in the data on the passengers who supposedly travelled from Baku to Dubai. Once there were only five passengers, how is it possible that such data was confusing?

Business as usual in a democratic country is asking critical questions and not sweeping money transfers from dictatorships to a bank whose owner has been indicted in the US, under the carpet

One version states that there were five passengers, another version states that there were six and the magistrate informs us that the passport numbers did not match in the two versions.

The Vistajet website states that the company has over 70 jets. Did the magistrate verify where the other jets were at the time the request was received from Baku? Azerbaijan is not quite Lampedusa in that it is quite distant from Malta. How is it possible that the plane in Malta was the closest to transport clients from Azerbaijan to Dubai?

The magistrate also reports that CCTV footage shows Ali Sadr being given a document on the infamous night when he exited the premises from a concealed exit. The published part of the inquiry does not mention what document this was.

We are faced with a Prime Minister who from day one in the Panama Papers revelations wanted to shelf the matter. Time and again we were told that it is “case closed”, whether it was when the “independent” audit was done or when Brian Tonna leaped to the defence of Mizzi and Schembri.

The Magistrate did conduct a thorough job, but with the means at his disposal. In separate proceedings Magistrate Joe Mifsud, a few days after the news that the Egrant inquiry was concluded, pronounced himself on the incident of a tiger attack on a child at Montekristo. In the latter case the magistrate was unable to declare Montekristo as being an illegal zoo on the basis that the prosecution did not present evidence that there is more than one animal on the site and neither did the prosecution provide evidence that the place is operational for more than seven days within a year.

In other words, the work of a magistrate is curtailed by the evidence, which the authorities responsible to investigate present. Does anyone have any doubts that there is more than one tiger at Montekristo?

The choice of politicians, journalists and the public is stark, we can either sit on the side of the Prime Minister and join in the chorus of “case closed”, or we can keep asking the unanswered questions, not for political mileage, but for Malta’s reputation to be restored.

I will throw in two questions: Prime Minister, if you felt so vilified by the allegations that your family owned the third company, presumably you are aware that setting up such financial structures is done for illicit reasons, therefore why is it that you have never taken any action whatsoever against Mizzi, Schembri and Tonna?

Secondly now that the magistrate’s inquiry has found conclusive evidence that the Aliyevs transferred large sums of money, can the Prime Minister state whether these transfers were in compliance with money-laundering regulations and were they ever flagged by the FIAU?  

Business as usual in a democratic country is asking critical questions and not sweeping, money transfers from dictatorships to a bank whose owner has been indicted in the US, under the carpet.

The ultimate aim of the Egrant inquiry was not to clear the name of the Prime Minister’s family, but to put a lid on the revelations of the Panamanian companies hidden behind trusts in New Zealand owned by Schembri and Mizzi.

Shamefully it is also being used to brush aside the money transfers from the Azeri ruling elite through Pilatus Bank.

Paul Radmilli is a Sliema local councillor.

paul.radmilli@gov.mt

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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