Times of Malta has revealed that a magisterial inquiry was concluded and passed on to the Attorney General recommending that criminal charges be brought against Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and others linked to the Electrogas power station, including Yorgen Fenech, who awaits trail for allegedly masterminding the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
This inquiry concerns the so-called Panama Papers scandal exposed by Daphne Caruana Galizia nine years ago in which Schembri and Mizzi registered secret companies in Panama and trusts in New Zealand to receive money from Fenech’s Dubai company, 17 Black.
It is now in the utmost public interest that the AG publishes this inquiry immediately and brings to court the criminal charges recommended by it. As we wait for this to happen, the question that we should all be asking is: why has it taken nine years to get here?
The answer is a grim one. The Labour government has spent all this time trying to stop justice from being served to protect its former leader Joseph Muscat and his cronies from criminal prosecution, and ultimately to protect itself from political oblivion.
The police and Attorney General only ever acted when they were forced to do so by the people
Allow me to recall the obstacles overcome to get to the truth and to justice.
On February 24, 2016, hours after Daphne had exposed the scandal, I went to Parliament and on behalf of the PN opposition, asked the prime minister, Joseph Muscat, how he intended to act on the shocking news that his top minister had been caught with a secret company in Panama, a jurisdiction notorious for harbouring the proceeds of crime and corruption.
Instead of doing the honourable thing and resigning on the spot, Muscat defended Mizzi to the hilt and launched a tirade against me as all government MPs banged their fists in support. Outside Parliament, I was hounded by Labour’s media challenging me to repeat what I had said in the chamber so that legal action could be taken against me. I promptly did so and libel proceedings were filed against me by Mizzi and Schembri, only to be dropped years later.
In the aftermath, a string of public protests drew thousands of law-abiding citizens to the streets, clamouring for justice and culminating in an early election a year later which was dominated by the Panama Papers scandal. Muscat gambled that winning the 2017 election would help him whitewash the criminal enterprise he was presiding. That election certainly showed he had captured public institutions and would not allow them to perform their duty.
This is why, having given up on the police and the AG taking action, barely one month after the election, in July 2017, I went to court invoking my right as a citizen to request a magisterial inquiry on possible crimes involved in Panama Papers. I felt that elections could not wash away crimes, and certainly not truth and justice. I believed, like all PN leaders before and after me, that truth will always prevail.
The saga that followed is evidence of the extent to which Labour has gone to obstruct justice.
When the duty magistrate accepted my request to start an inquiry, Muscat’s accomplices promptly appealed. Why would anyone in power appeal even against the opening of an investigation, unless they had something to hide?
Their appeal landed in front of a pliant judge married to a Labour MEP who refused to recuse himself from the case, leaving us with no option but to go to the Constitutional Court seeking his removal. In the meantime, precious months rolled by.
The appeal was eventually heard by a new judge who, in January 2019, quashed our request claiming that our concerns were based on mere speculation. We were flabbergasted because by that time so much more information had been exposed about the scandal and several politicians prosecuted over Panama Papers the world over.
For instance, in April 2018, Times of Malta revealed an e-mail sent by Mizzi and Schembri’s auditors confirming that the Panama companies were opened to receive up to €2 million a year from 17 Black. Soon after, MEP David Casa exposed a leaked FIAU report on 17 Black that found sufficient wrongdoing to refer the case to the police.
Instead of investigating the matter, the police washed their hands and passed the buck to Magistrate Charmaine Galea. That coincided with Times of Malta exposing Yorgen Fenech as the owner of 17 Black in November 2018. Finally, everyone realised why the secret companies in Panama had been opened.
So rather than give up, in March 2019, thanks to the indefatigable Jason Azzopardi, I started the entire process afresh, this time with NGO Repubblika, again invoking our right as citizens to request a magisterial inquiry. Our new request was accepted by Magistrate Doreen Clarke in April 2019 and an inquiry was duly ordered and integrated into the one led by Magistrate Galea.
More than six years later, it is this inquiry that has finally been concluded.
This will be the third time that serious corruption charges will be brought against high-profile members of the Labour government. The first were in March 2021 against Schembri, Mizzi and others following the conclusion of two magisterial inquiries that I had requested in 2017 on alleged kickbacks paid on the sale of passports and on the purchase of printing equipment by The Times. Those criminal proceedings are still ongoing.
The second was in May last year when charges were brought not only against Schembri and Mizzi but also against Muscat himself, as well as other ministers and civil servants, following another magisterial inquiry requested by Repubblika on the privatisation of public hospitals. Those criminal proceedings too are ongoing.
All three cases share a common thread: they concern corruption scandals exposed by Caruana Galizia. For this, she paid with her life and we can never bring her back.
When corruption is committed under the mantle of the very prime minister and his office, it is an absolutely heinous crime. But none of these high-profile arraignments would ever have happened were it not for action taken by citizens who stood up to corruption. The police and AG only ever acted when they were forced to do so by the people.
Instead of serving justice, the Labour government went to great lengths to obstruct justice and made us sweat blood to get here. It has also been on a rampage against those who fight for justice, trying to quell them, ridicule them and shut them up. For years on end, they taunted that the box files of evidence that I had presented in court “were empty”. As Peppi Azzopardi aptly put it, they did not contain pizzas but were certainly hot.
Labour persists in defending its own criminal elements, including its former leader, and attacking those who fight for justice. It does so even under Robert Abela. As a lawyer and son of a former president, he should know better.
Abela has said he wants to abolish our right as citizens to trigger magisterial inquiries. Yet, without that right, none of the scandals would ever have made it to the doorstep of justice. He is afraid that serving justice can only mean his predecessor facing more criminal charges and with that, the loss of political support.
In defending its corrupt elements, the Labour government has become the problem and when you are the problem, you can hardly provide a solution, especially where truth and justice are concerned.
The good news is that no matter how much Labour tries to bury it, truth will always prevail.
Simon Busuttil is a former PN and Opposition Leader.