Updated 12.53pm with reaction by Joseph Muscat's lawyer below.
“I have nothing to hide,” disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat declared in a right of reply to the Times of Malta on November 19. Just two days later, court testimony revealed that Muscat was still refusing to provide the passcode to his iPhone.
Muscat is charged with money laundering, corruption and bribery. As the noose tightens, Muscat is resorting to more desperate attempts to stall his criminal prosecution. His latest tactic is to intimidate the forensic accountant, Milena Milenovic, who helped uncover the evidence that led to Muscat’s indictment for such serious crimes.
Muscat filed a criminal complaint with the police commissioner against Milenovic. He falsely claimed that Milenovic is not an accountant at all. He accused her of perjury, malicious use of false documents, forgery and use of forged documents, obtaining money through false pretences and breaches of accountancy and money laundering laws.
Yet, Milenovic is the very same forensic accountant who worked on the Egrant inquiry. Muscat never questioned Milenovic’s credentials when Magistrate Aaron Bugeja concluded there was “no evidence” that Egrant belonged to Michelle Muscat. Milenovic played a key role in that inquiry. Her name is mentioned almost 100 times in the inquiry report. Milenovic couldn’t find any evidence that Egrant was owned by Muscat’s wife. But she couldn’t find any evidence to identify the true owner. That’s not because Egrant didn’t belong to anybody. It was because Egrant ownership was hidden through the suspected use of anonymous bearer shares.
In fact, the Egrant inquiry didn’t identify who owned Egrant, which means that nobody can declare that it didn’t belong to Michelle Muscat. All that can be concluded is that “no evidence” was found to prove that she owned it.
Milenovic was also part of the Vitals inquiry that provided sufficient evidence for Joseph Muscat to be indicted. And Muscat is doing his utmost to destroy her, to stop her testifying.
Milenovic has 20 years of experience working as an accountant with one of the Big Four firms. She’s a certified fraud investigator in the United States and held several high-ranking government positions in her native Serbia. She became a member of the Serbian Anti-Corruption Council in 2012, and, in 2015, was recognised by the OSCE, no less, as the “person of the year” for the fight against corruption and for media freedom. Yet, Muscat is accusing her that she’s not an accountant. He’s filed a frivolous criminal complaint against her. He’s joined forces once more with Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri to weaponise the country’s police force against her.
When Times of Malta highlighted Muscat’s hypocrisy, he went berserk. In a brilliant article titled ‘Muscat never questioned her Egrant work – now he wants a court expert prosecuted’, Times of Malta demolished Muscat. It exposed his ridiculousness and his nastiness.
Muscat’s pride was severely dented. He reacted in default boorishness, lashing out in insolent vulgarity. “There are those who might argue that now the Egrant case should be reopened. As I said numerous times when such a possibility was floated, including by the said court experts who salivated at the idea of getting paid even more public funds – make my day!”
Just two days later, Keith Cutajar testified in court that it will take 321 days of expert work to unlock Muscat’s iPhone. Cutajar explained that, because Muscat refused to provide his passcode to unlock the phone, the State has to pay experts to try to unlock it. Cutajar testified that the process to unlock Muscat’s iPhone has been under way for 23 days and 16 hours. So far, 1,100 attempts to unlock the phone have been made every single day. The expert testified it will take another 298 days of work to break the code and get to the evidence that Muscat wants kept secret.
Muscat is slowly but surely sinking deeper into the quagmire of depravity- Kevin Cassar
Muscat accused court experts of “salivating” at the idea of getting their hands on more taxpayers’ money. He could save us all a lot of money and a lot of time if he could just provide his passcode. If he is so adamant that he has nothing to hide, why won’t he do so? Why is he letting the State waste thousands of euros to unlock his phone? If he loves his country so much why not spare it the unnecessary cost? Why not allow the court to see the contents of his phone? If he’s as innocent as he claims, then, surely, he has every interest to show the court what his phone contains – it would exonerate him.
Instead, Muscat keeps saying one thing and doing the opposite. He’s got nothing to hide, he claims, but obstinately refuses to hand over his passcode. That’s not the behaviour of an innocent man. Those are not the actions of a man with nothing to hide.
But there was more incriminating evidence against Muscat. Kevin Causon testified that Muscat held an account with Em@ney, “an electronic money institution that offers integrated technology and state-of-the-art financial tools”. Muscat never declared that account in his declaration of assets. Why did he hide it?
Three years ago, Em@ney was fined €360,000 by the FIAU for a series of anti-money laundering breaches concerning clients involved in passport sales, cryptocurrency and with potential links to organised crime. Em@ney has now been banned from taking on new clients by the MFSA until it ensures that the “proper governance and internal controls” are in place to operate its licence in accordance with the law.
Muscat is slowly but surely sinking deeper into the quagmire of depravity. And the more he flails around the deeper he sinks. He’s now resorted to unleashing the police commissioner onto a court expert for providing the evidence to indict him. He fears her testimony will nail him. He’s insisting he’s got nothing to hide while refusing to unlock his iPhone. And, now, we know that he held an account with a company found guilty of failing to enforce anti-money laundering measures. And hid it from the public.
Reply by Charlon Gouder, Joseph Muscat's lawyer
"Kevin Cassar's article against Dr. Muscat contains factually incorrect statements.
"Dr Muscat is prevented by a Court decree from commenting on the hospitals case. Therefore, he cannot address Mr Cassar's defence of what emerged as an unqualified and unwarranted court expert.
"Mr Cassar makes the unfounded allegation that Dr Muscat held a local bank account and did not declare it during his time as Prime Minister. This claim is patently false."