How big corruption cases stalled in court in 2025

“Absolutely not guilty.”

Joseph Muscat uttered those words 17 months ago in court, and in doing so made history as the first former prime minister in Malta to be charged with corruption. 

The case against him and a slew of other former officials implicated in the Vitals/Steward hospitals concession scandal has, however, barely got off the marks in the next year-and-a-half. 

With a lack of police investigation into the case and a relentless campaign by the 15+ defence lawyers to undermine financial experts who helped a magisterial inquiry build the corruption charges, questions are being raised about how to move the prosecution forward. 

The most spectacular blow to the case came in February, when lead expert Jeremy Harbinson announced he would not be testifying, claiming fears for his safety. 

Perhaps even more damaging, Harbinson claimed a 1,200-page inquiry report that was years in the making was never meant to be used directly as a basis for prosecutions.

“Our report made no mention of criminal charges or freezing orders, and I had no input into these,” Harbinson said. 

The charges were drawn up by inquiring magistrate Gabriella Vella, on the basis of the expert findings. 

Harbinson said a disclaimer in the report made it clear it was only meant to be used by the inquiring magistrate and not shared with third parties without prior permission.

He added: “the report to the inquiry was of the highest quality and I stand over the findings and opinions set out in it”.

His reluctance to stand by those findings on the witness stand had led to calls by the defence for the case to be dropped. 

Defence lawyers argue they have a right to cross-examine Harbinson, as the report’s lead author, about the inquiry’s conclusions. 

The impasse will likely lead to legal objections and challenges that will further slowdown the stuttering progress of the case. One scenario worth visiting is whether the prosecution could survive if the defence successfully argues for it to be expunged as evidence. 

Attorney General prosecutors and police officials have openly admitted in court that they did not carry out their own investigations prior to charging Muscat and his associates in May 2024. 

One key point worth remembering is that the expert report was not drawn up in isolation.

Searches and seizures of documents and devices from all the key players in the scandal, including Muscat and former government officials Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, form the backbone of the report, which weaved all the evidence together into a narrative for the prosecution. 

Even if the defence successfully argue for the report to be expunged from the case, prosecutors will still have the raw documents, e-mails, contracts and transaction records linking the three officials to an alleged kickback scheme involving Steward Health Care and a Swiss intermediary. 

The fraud case against a second tier of officials, including ex-deputy prime minister Chris Fearne, might be a harder ask if the report were to be expunged. 

This is because the prosecution is largely based on the report’s narrative of Fearne and others failing to step in to prevent the alleged fraud, rather than explicit evidence linking them to the wrongdoing. 

The ‘other’ corruption case

Another major corruption investigation from the Muscat era finally came to a head in 2025, after a long struggle for justice. 

It was close to 10 years ago when Schembri and Mizzi were outed as the owners of secret Panama companies in a massive data leak known as the Panama Papers. 

Financial experts concluded that the €450 million government contract to build and operate a new power station in 2013 was “most likely” award­ed to the Electrogas consortium to create funds for this corrupt scheme.

The revelations led to calls for the two men to be sacked; however, Muscat stood by them, and even weathered “false” claims that he was the owner of a third Panama company called Egrant.

An inquiry concluded in 2025 uncovered “corrupt deals” fuelled by major energy contracts and millions of euros in funds “laundered” from Azerbaijan.

The probe concluded that Schembri and Mizzi conspired to profit from govern­ment energy deals and hide their illicit gains via “money laundering structures” in Panama and the United Arab Emirates.

Investigators allege plans for the “money-laundering structures” were hatched in mid-2012, and “accelerated and became a reality” once the Labour Party returned to government in March 2013.

Financial experts concluded that the €450 million government contract to build and operate a new power station in 2013 was “most likely” award­ed to the Electrogas consortium to create funds for this corrupt scheme.

The former government officials were charged alongside former Electrogas director Yorgen Fenech and his business associate Paul Apap Bologna in February 2025.

All concerned deny wrongdoing. 

A court approved a request to freeze the assets of the accused, with freeze orders ranging from €18 million to roughly €200,000. 

Brian Tonna and Karl Cini, the accountants who are alleged to have planned the money transfers involved, and set up the Panama structures, were also charged. Tonna was also on a key committee that selected the Electrogas bid as the winner of the lucrative power station public contract.

A court has ruled there is enough evidence for the defendants to face trial. 

Some of the experts who worked on the hospitals inquiry were also present in the Panama Papers one, meaning further legal challenges are likely down the line. 

One of the targets is Miroslava Milenovic, a financial expert who has been attacked over her credentials as a forensic accountant. 

Although Milenovic has already presented evidence in the hospitals case, she refused to be questioned further on the witness stand. It came after defence lawyers for Muscat and others demanded a police probe into whether Milenovic misrepresented her qualification as a forensic accountant when she was appointed to the hospitals’ inquiry.

A criminal complaint was filed against Milenovic by lawyers representing ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat and other defendants in a separate case linked to the hospitals’ privatisation deal.

Both the hospitals and Panama Papers scandals took years to see their day in court. 

The coterie of high-profile defence lawyers will likely ensure that the cases remain bogged down in court for years to come.