Electrogas shareholder Paul Apap Bologna told the Nationalist Party while it was in government that investors in a power station deal would “do our bit” if the proposal saw the light of day, former PN general secretary Paul Borg Olivier testified on Wednesday.
Dr Borg Olivier told an inquiry looking into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia that he had been perplexed when the entrepreneur, who was pitching plans to build a gas-fired power station, told him “we will do our bit if you do yours”.
“I asked him what he meant. He replied with a cryptic smile,” Dr Borg Olivier said, saying the phrase had “troubled” him.
The meeting took place in May 2009.
Mr Apap Bologna is one of the shareholders in the Electrogas consortium which built the gas power station in Delimara following Labour’s rise to power in 2013. The power station deal has prompted significant scrutiny. Ms Caruana Galizia was investigating the deal at the time of her murder in October 2017.
Dr Borg Olivier said that many of the proposals Mr Apap Bologna had presented to him “like a salesman” during that 2009 meeting, which he described as “cordial”, were reflected in the Electrogas deal which Labour would unveil years later.
“I thought to myself, ‘so it has come to fruition,’” he told the inquiry.
Mr Apap Bologna has in the past denied any form of pre-election deal with the Labour Party.
Dr Borg Olivier said that although Mr Apap Bologna told him that “local businessmen” were involved in the project, he did not mention any names to him during their meeting.
He said he told the entrepreneur that the (then) government already had its own energy plans, and the meeting ended there.
Other shareholders in the Electrogas consortium include German giants Siemens, Azeri fuel company Socar, and local company GEM Holdings, which includes Mr Apap Bologna, the Gasan family and Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of complicity in the murder of Ms Caruana Galizia. Fuel company Gasol were also part of the consortium until 2015.
Dr Borg Olivier told the inquiry that the PN had also been approached by citizenship agents Henley & Partners, who were keen to discuss a citizenship-by-investment scheme. The PN had turned down the proposal as it did not fit the party’s policies, he said.
The Labour government would go on to sign a deal with Henley & Partners to design and implement a cash-for-passports scheme, the Individual Investor Programme. The company made more than €36m from the scheme in just commissions between 2014 and 2019.
Journalists testify
Caroline Muscat, who co-founded news website The Shift in the weeks following Ms Caruana Galizia’s assassination, also testified on Wednesday.
She told the inquiry how an investigation The Shift had carried out had discovered a “shocking” level of vitriol and hate speech directed at Ms Caruana Galizia in a variety of Facebook groups which The Shift had infiltrated.
Administrators of these groups worked in ministries or were Labour Party electoral candidates, she said.
“Daphne was presented as a witch to be burnt at the stake, as a monster,” she said.
Some of the hate speech came from public officials like Neville Gafa’, she said, and the dehumanisation campaign had remained active even after Ms Caruana Galizia was killed.
Other public figures like Josef Caruana, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Rosianne Cutajar, Robert Musumeci, Karl Stagno Navarra and Tony Zarb also fanned the flames, she said, adding that Malta was one of a handful of countries which had a system of “state-sponsored trolling”.
“This was definitely organised,” she said. “You couldn’t get messages across in such a short time otherwise”.
Ms Muscat said she had become friendly with Ms Caruana Galizia during the last years of her life and the two would sometimes chat online.
In the last chat the two had, Ms Muscat testified, Ms Caruana Galizia wrote “I have a sense of time running out”.
“It was not something that she would normally say. She was relentless,” she said.
The remark brought one of Ms Caruana Galizia’s sisters, who was listening inside the courtroom, to tears.
Monique Agius and Miguela Xuereb from news website Newsbook also testified. The two were among a group of journalists briefly locked inside a room at the Auberge de Castille following a 3am press conference held last November.
Journalists were locked in the room, which was guarded by unidentified security officials, as then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his ministers exited the building, in an incident which drew condemnation from international press freedom organisations.
“We filed a report to police but so far I have no updates,” Ms Xuereb testified.
“It was very traumatic,” said Ms Agius.
The public inquiry will resume on February 17, when government officials Josef Caruana and Matthew Carbone and former OPM staff member Neville Gafà will testify.
MP Glenn Bedingfield will also appear before the inquiry on February 19.