Fraud case against former Labour secretary Jimmy Magro to continue

A court has ruled that there is enough evidence for former Labour Party general secretary Jimmy Magro to be placed under a bill of indictment for alleged fraud and misuse of EU funds. 

Magro was arraigned last month. He denies any wrongdoing.

Last Thursday, Mark Said, a financial investigations director at the Internal Audit and Investigations Department (IAID) told the court that his department received two separate allegations in 2014 concerning Magro, which they began investigating.

The first allegation was received in October and concerned the so-called WTD  project, which benefited from EU funds. The IAID was asked to investigate the Local Councils’ Association’s (LCA)  involvement with regard to the project.

The second allegation was received in December regarding the Suneagle Life Plus project.

Said recalled that an administrative investigation was launched and the IAID collected all the documentation from the LCA.

There were several meetings held with LCA, which also featured Magro, who had previously served as the association’s executive secretary before becoming a special advisor. He was also a project manager on both projects.

Said explained how invoices for hotels and attendance sheets from statutory meetings were used to fraudulently claim refunds for the EU-funded projects.

He described an “artificial” situation showing that meetings under the two EU funded projects took place but in reality these were statutory meetings for mayors and councillors, which they paid for.

In one case, which was described as a second local meeting under one of the projects, that purportedly took place on December 7, 2013 at the Dolmen Hotel, the investigators found that the refund was claimed using an attendance sheet of a plenary meeting for councillors that happened a year earlier – December 10, 2012.

The witness observed that in 2013 an election had been held, and those appearing on the attendance sheet as councillors were either no longer in the council as they had been elected to parliament, or their role within the council had changed. One such example was a person listed as mayor when in 2013 he was a minister.

Under cross-examination, Said confirmed that the refunds were made to the LCA’s bank account.

Accountant Daniel Galea took the stand and told the court that he provided services to the LCA by preparing its quarterly reports and audited financial statements once a year. These reports are then subject to a review by the National Audit Office.

He explained that the IAID had requested the LCA to prepare the inflows and outflows for the two projects – WTD and Suneagle Life Plus, which he prepared until December 2015.

Galea explained that the LCA received money both from its foreign partners in the project as well as funds from the co-funding fund, from which local entities may benefit from when needing to co-finance a project.

During last week’s sitting, the defence argued that there was no case against their client.

It also emerged that the LCA filed an application to be admitted as an injured party in the ongoing proceedings.

On Monday morning, the court ruled that Magro had a case to answer and the case will continue in his regard.

The case continues on September 15.

Magistrate Giannella Camilleri Busuttil presided. Police Superintendent Rennie Stivala prosecuted. Lawyers Michael Sciriha, Franco Debono and Roberto Spiteri appeared for Magro.