The Egrant inquiry which Joseph Muscat tried desperately to hide and which only he and some of his faithful lackeys (Kurt Farrugia, Owen Bonnici, Pawlu Lia, Keith Schembri (?)) have had the opportunity to access, is now public.
The forensic experts’ conclusion is quite clear: “1. We have found nothing in the digital data to suggest that Mrs Muscat, either personally or through companies she may own, had anything to do with Egrant. 2. We have not seen any documents revealing that the UBO of Egrant was anyone other than Brian Tonna. 3. There is also nothing to suggest that there was ever a bank account opened in the name of Egrant” (page 1278).
However, there are quite a number of marginal revelations which show that not all is fine in the Kingdom of Denmark.
While John Dalli’s Pilatus account was basically empty, with hardly more than €1,000 in it (page 282), it is now confirmed that Keith Schembri had a personal account in Pilatus Bank. And it was not such a poor account, since it contained around €100,000. On the other hand, employees at Pilatus Bank were not sure whether Schembri also had a Tillgate account at Pilatus (Page 374).
As for Tonna, it has now been ascertained that not only did he have an account in the name of his company, Willerby, but he also used to refer numerous clients of his to Pilatus Bank (page 376). Magistrate Aaron Bugeja concludes that the first mention of Schembri and a company in Panama Papers is not related to the Panama companies but to three companies being set up in the British Virgin Islands in April 2013, a few days after the election of Joseph Muscat as Prime Minister (page 311).
In fact, the forensic experts concluded that “4. Immediately prior to the prime minister winning the election, Nexia BT did contact Mossack Fonseca to set up a dedicated Maltese operation to which they are closely linked. 5. Mossack Fonseca was then used to provide nominee shareholders and directors for the offshore companies set up by Nexia. This is specifically the case with Colson Ltd, which Nexia had previously set up for Schembri. The ownership was moved to MossFon nominees when Schembri became a Maltese politically exposed person in March 2013, by virtue of the election. The offshore companies owned by his associates Hillman and Scerri, namely Lester and Selson, were also altered to hide their UBOs at this date. 6. We have established that there was a history of substantial payments and transfer of funds between Schembri, Hillman and Scerri and their offshore companies.
Boy oh boy, what a Pandora’s Box on irregularities, filthy greed, muck, illegalities, lies and mafia behaviour does it open
We also know that post-election it would become almost impossible to continue these transactions by virtue of Schembri’s new status as a domestic PEP – unless his shareholdings were placed under nominees. Using Mossfon nominees, the banking transactions between a PEP and third parties could continue, albeit with more difficulty” (pages 1309-1310). From the inquiry, we get to know that Tonna was Joseph Muscat’s accountant, when he was an MEP (pages 481-483), as well as Michelle Muscat’s private accountant, taking care of all Michelle’s payroll services, personal tax returns and nanny salary (page 934). What sounds fishy is that Karl Cini declares that he was totally unaware of all this (page 1145). However, this solves the mystery why Tonna became so important once Muscat became Prime Minister (pages 481-483).
Michelle Muscat’s testimony that no money was involved in the Buttardi partnership with Michelle Buttigieg… only a partnership between friends, where she was using her position as the Prime Minister’s spouse to help the business of a friend, even with activities at Girgenti and Ta’ Francia (pages 481-483), sounds completely incongruent, and seems to me rather naive or stupid.
Her disgraced husband’s testimony that they had gone to the wedding of Pilatus Bank owner in Firenze mainly because… he wanted to meet the CEO of Coca Cola, Mohtar Kent, who was going to be at the wedding in Firenze too (page 479) does not seem at all convincing to me.
But then there are even more damning conclusions: Who decided to give Pilatus a licence asks the forensic accountant. He notes that it was unclear how somebody with very limited banking experience, 30 years old with a passport from Saint Kitts and Nevis got the licence to operate the bank (page 934). Who decided this? We then get to know that a Vitals consultant received payments in Pilatus Bank. KPMG consultants confirm this in their testimony. So there is definitely a strong financial connection between these two shady entities: Pilatus and Vitals (page 854).
A scandalous revelation to me is the one at page 491. Here, Schembri testifies that he had a trust with BOV. But he declared to the magistrate that info about his trust was being leaked. Schembri was angry about this and so he asked for the opinion of others, including Joseph Muscat, how he could transfer his BOV trust to somewhere else. Following the opinions he had asked from his friends, he decided to open the secret New Zealand trust. Did Muscat collaborate in all this to help his very dear and close friend?
And then, at page 936, we get confirmation that Tonna was special consultant to Konrad Mizzi’s ministry; and at pages 936-937 that Mizzi, Schembri, Tonna and Cheng Chen were scheming together between them to open a company in the secretive British Virgin Islands through which all business with China would pass. And finally, we have the confirmation of very suspicious Azerbaijan-Pilatus Bank connections (pages 961-962).
And again, what about the suspicion of irregularities and kickbacks connected with the Allied Newspaper contracts, involving Sladden, Scerri, Hillman and Schembri (pages 1238-1239)? And did Cini delete e-mails which indicated he was trying to set up bank accounts for Mizzi and Schembri, as hypothesised by the forensic experts at page 1250?
The Egrant inquiry which cost ustaxpayers over €1 million did not find any connection between Egrant and Michelle Muscat. But, boy oh boy, what a Pandora’s Box on irregularities, filthy greed, muck, illegalities, lies and mafia behaviour does it open.
And, most important of all, are these all the impending investigations that Joseph Muscat was, all the time, referring to in the Egrant report? I wonder if this is the case!
Arnold Cassola, academic and politician, is former secretary general of the European Green Party and former member of the Italian Parliament.