Malta’s Labour office has contacted Maria Efimova to inform her Pilatus Bank has settled her outstanding salary from when she worked for three unpaid months as executive assistant to Ali Sadr.
In the ironic turn of events, Pilatus Bank have effectively admitted Maria Efimova’s complaint against them was justified and she was indeed owed payment. Ali Sadr always insisted Maria Efimova was an unpaid intern who was dismissed when, according to him, she defrauded the bank to pay for flights for herself and her family at the bank’s expense.
Maria Efimova always insisted this was not true. Now it appears her former employer has accepted Maria Efimova’s version of events.
This payment comes after the Greek Supreme Court confirmed a lower court’s decision to refuse Malta’s request for her extradition to answer to Ali Sadr’s allegation that she defrauded him and his bank.
Maria Efimova had to spend several months in hiding and two weeks in a Greek prison while the authorities assessed Malta’s request for her extradition is a fugitive from the law.
Exceptionally for a request made by an EU member state, Greek courts decided not to trust Maria Efimova’s safety to Malta’s authorities.
The campaign to discredit Maria Efimova for the benefit of Ali Sadr was led by prime minister Joseph Muscat who accused Maria Efimova of lying about him in the interests of the Kremlin that wanted to destabilise his government.
His media henchmen then proceeded with a witch-hunt that spread outside the country in areas where she was suspected to be hiding.
Hired enforcers visited her father in Russia, later informing Maria Efimova that they were paid for the job by a senior politician in the Labour Party.
A disinformation campaign on Cypriot media, later found by the Cypriot press regulator to be malicious and intent on discrediting Maria Efimova, published a series of lies that were repeated here by state propagandist Brian Hansford.
Maria Efimova provided information regarding the goings on at Pilatus Bank that was in many respects verified by the indictment of the US Federal Authorities against Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr. This included several allegations found to be baseless by a second investigation into the affairs of the bank by the FIAU.
Maria Efimova was also one of the sources that informed Daphne Caruana Galizia Pilatus Bank held evidence Michelle Muscat, the prime minister’s wife, owned Panama company Egrant and received there considerable deposits from the dictator of Azerbaijan’s family that are clients of Pilatus Bank.
It is believed that evidence was disposed of that same evening by Ali Sadr himself.
