At first glance, the story broken by this newspaper and The Boston Globe seems all but wrapped up. Leaked corporate records show that last year’s smear campaign against Carmen Ciantar and Chris Fearne was funded by Steward Health Care. And, yet, the news presents a puzzle.

The e-mails explain why Fearne was targeted but not the timing. They show that Steward sat on one document, which was part of the smear, for some eight months. The “information” finally surfaced on a dubious Pakistani website in late May 2023. It was June when it raised a furore in Malta. From Steward’s point of view, that seems far too late for some purposes and far too early for others.

To be puzzled by the timing is to raise questions about motive. And surveying possible motives leads us to ask who else had access to that report. We can’t get to the bottom of this attempted attack on a deputy prime minister and, therefore, the State, without asking all the questions.

A quick reminder of the background: Ciantar, then head of the Foundation of Medical Services, was accused of significant corruption. It was evident that the ultimate target was Fearne, then health minister.

Ciantar protested her innocence. She ‘auto-suspended’ herself. At the end of the July, Ciantar returned to work. Some time later, the FCID informed Ciantar that the investigation was closed and she was cleared.

The leaked e-mails show that Steward was looking for dirt on Fearne at least as early as late 2021. He was considered the major obstacle to a new deal. Two private intelligence firms were hired at great cost to dig up something. An “incriminating” document was in hand in October 2022. However, when the frame-up was attempted, Fearne’s opposition was no longer the most critical issue.

By February, a court had already ordered the hospitals to be returned to the government. A court appeal was under way but it was politically impossible for the hospitals to be returned to Steward. The chief problem was no longer Fearne. It was public outrage.

Why plant the story at all in May? Three months earlier, Mr Justice Francesco Depasquale had declared that the hospitals deal was fraudulent. Why use a smear as a bargaining chip if there was nothing left to bargain over?

At this point, Steward’s fate was in the hands of the appeals court. The May timing is odd even if Steward was hoping to win the appeal and then twist Fearne’s arm. In this scenario, May is very premature, not too late. By the time the appeal was settled in October – Steward losing once more – Ciantar had already been cleared by the police.

We should not forget the ongoing international arbitration case between Malta and Steward, in which at least €150 million are at stake. But it’s not obvious what the Fearne smear would achieve here. Steward had already published many documents and side letters to back its argument that the original Vitals deal was fraudulent.

Even if it could achieve something, May 2023 was, once more, very premature. Given that a decision is expected in 2025, a story published two years before would have every chance of being debunked or countered. Indeed, that is what has happened and Robert Abela has instructed Malta’s arbitration lawyers to investigate the story of Steward’s role in the smear campaign.

If Steward’s strategic purposes do not resolve the puzzle of timing, what does?- Ranier Fsadni

If Steward’s strategic purposes do not resolve the puzzle of timing, what does?

One possibility is to stop looking for a rational purpose. Perhaps it was irrational vendetta, when all was lost. But pure spite is a complete break with Steward’s focused strategic behaviour up till that point.

A new possible rationale is opened up if we stop thinking of Steward as a single entity and see it as embracing diverse interests of various shareholders.

In August last year, after the smear surfaced, the Daphne Foundation published a report that detailed how there had been significant attempts to plant the story in the international media months before it was published in Pakistan.

Pakistan was, therefore, Plan B. But the target of the disinformation was significant. It was not the Maltese government. It was an international group of journalists investigating the corruption in the deal itself. Had they swallowed the fake story, the impact would have been to derail an investigation into who was involved.

Seen from this angle, the May timing appears more motivated. The smear was published days after Times of Malta and The Shift News broke the news of how the Vitals investors paid themselves handsomely out of funds meant for investment in health.

At that point, while the Steward deal with the government was all but lost, the magisterial inquiry into the hospitals deal was still open. The timing makes perfect sense if the aim was to derail that too.

Ciantar understood that well. After the frame-up, one of the first things she did was testify before the inquiring magistrate. And then she made sure we knew about it.

So, to the irrational motive of spite we can now add the possibility of a rational one: getting at Fearne not to clinch a deal but to send two investigations into a tailspin.

What about the means? The private intelligence firms were paid by Steward but the fake reports (whether or not they were known to be fake) could plausibly have been shared with the deal’s investors, as the Pakistan connection suggests.

Nor need the reports have been accessed through Steward. It can’t be excluded that one of the intelligence firms made it available to an interested party, especially if there was a prior relationship.

Perhaps there’s a plain explanation for the puzzling timing. But we can’t get to the bottom of it unless we ask all the questions about motive and means.