The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) Board refers to the article ‘Ferris stopped from taking Mizzi report to court’, (The Sunday Times of Malta, December 3). The article also included a photograph deriving from the illegal use and access of the CCTV system within the FIAU premises and the illegal downloading and retention of data from that computerised system.
The photograph itself shows that all movements within the FIAU premises, including the office of the director, are, in fact, recorded, and the FIAU staff are aware of this in accordance with data protection laws. It also shows the environment of internal accountability in which the FIAU operates.
The FIAU strongly deplores the fact that its internal systems of accountability are being abused for the purpose of fuelling wild speculation to the effect that a meeting held between the police liaison officer to the FIAU and FIAU officials was some sort of a secret meeting, and evidence of some conspiracy not to divulge information to the court.
The FIAU recalls that both the FIAU as an intelligence agency and the police liaison officer to the FIAU have no fixed office hours and that the slant given to the speculation by referring to the meeting as one held outside office hours is totally misleading and malicious.
The magisterial inquiry to which it is reported that Mr Ferris made reference in his meeting with MEPs was about the leak of four pages from the particular working document referred to.
Mr Ferris therefore had no justification whatsoever to take the whole working document to court, thereby giving rise to the possibility of covering the tracks for anyone who may have stolen or leaked the whole working document now allegedly in the possession of MEP David Casa.
The FIAU has always done its duty and executed its functions according to law and is not there to play party political games or to be used in the arts of political spin. Anyone who sees the FIAU as a source of information to use in the political arena would, in fact, be eyeing the destruction of the organisation and the elimination of the effective performance of its functions for the benefit of the rule of law.
The FIAU’s Board of Governors, its director, deputy director and all its officials are willing and available to discuss and render account for all their actions in the matter with the inquiring magistrate, and the FIAU reserves its right to take any legal action as may be necessary for the protection of its integrity.