Nexia BT accountant Karl Cini himself wrote the text for a document Mossack Fonseca sent to the media as proof of Egrant’s ownership, it has emerged.
In his testimony to then magistrate Aaron Bugeja, since promoted to judge, as part of the Egrant inquiry, Mr Cini admitted to having written the text stating that Nexia BT managing partner Brian Tonna owned Egrant.
The text was then sent to Mossack Fonseca director Riccardo Sameniegom who signed it as a letter bearing the company’s letter head.
“This is a document that isn’t standard. I asked for it myself specifically at the time when we were receiving various questions from the media. I wanted a document, at least in scanned format, to present and which stated that Brian had remained [sic],” Mr Cini said.
The document in question was a letter dated February 16, 2017, signed by the Mossack Fonseca director. It was sent to the media by Mr Cini as questions on the ownership of the once-secret Panama company started to be made.
Mr Cini admitted to writing the text after the inquiring magistrate flagged similarities between the February 17 letter and a previous one sent by Mr Tonna to Mossack Fonseca.
In the inquiry report, the inquiring magistrate noted that the letter was written in a style that was notably different from that usually used in Panama.
“While in Panama they write names in bold, it seems like the font they used was Arial while now, all of a sudden, it changes to Times New Roman,” the magistrate noted, pointing out the title of the letter seemed to have been a case of “copy and paste”.
At this point, Mr Cini replied he had sent the text.
“You wrote the text, didn’t you,” the magistrate enquired.
Mr Cini replied: “Of course. Because this is not a standard document, I sent the text... obviously they did not know what questions I was being asked and what we wanted to cover, so I had to write up exactly what we wanted to cover.”
In 2017, when the letter was published, then-Opposition leader Simon Busuttil had dismissed the claim Mr Tonna owned Egrant, saying nobody believed it to be true.
The Nationalist Party had long questioned the ownership of Egrant, especially in light of the fact it was set up through Nexia BT at the same time as former minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, Keith Schembri set up their own companies in Panama.
In April that year, slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had claimed Egrant was owned by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s wife, Michelle, prompting him to request a magisterial inquiry into the claims.
Concluded the following year, the inquiry did not find any evidence that linked Ms Muscat to the company.