Members of the European Parliament, who have been following up on corruption and rule of law in Malta, have written to Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank and asked him to shut down Pilatus Bank and withdraw its license. The move follows the government's failure to close down Pilatus Bank in spite of the [...]

By Charles Schembri. Needless to say the views of guests are not always entirely consistent with the editorial line of this site. But debate, if backed by cogent argument, is always welcome. Particularly in a liberal democracy a country’s statute of laws, the executive and its agencies, especially those institutions that enable and ensure the [...]

By Pat Azzopardi Preziosi: I saw this photo and I started crying again. I cried for the stolen childhood of three boys who have had to live their lives knowing that their mother was hated, maligned and lied about. I cried because these three boys couldn’t really bond with their beloved pets because their pets [...]

Kurt Farrugia called my story about a 2015 app put out on Facebook "pure fiction". Naturally the actual app existed. The data requested from its users was requested. All that Kurt Farrugia included in his 'pure fiction' rubbish bin. What we're supposed to believe is the government did not use the data for its micro-targeting [...]

While it is somehow easy to demonise a faceless blonde Russian and to dismiss the quips of an ex-police officer as politically motivated, it is indeed an incredible challenge to spin the manifestly shifty, serial wife-battering, inexplicably wealthy, multiple passport-wielding Ali Sadr as some sort of hero. And yet the Labour trolls have their instructions. [...]

By callixtus after my post on the Luzerner Zeitung: The Luzerner Zeitung missed a far more important Swiss connection, Christian Kalin. Ali Sadr and his wife were guests at Kalin's twentieth wedding anniversary party. I wouldn't be surprised if Christian Kalin attended Ali Sard's wedding in Italy together with Keith Schembri and Joseph Muscat (how [...]

It takes formidable courage to be Jonathan Ferris and Maria Efimova in these times. And you need to be of exceptionally rare character in a world where people rarely do anything for nothing to give up so much purely because you’re right and being told to shut up will not stop you believing that. When [...]

Luzerner Zeitung reports on the connections in Switzerland of Ali Sadr now in a US jail indicted for multiple counts of fraud and sanctions laws breaches. "Traces of Malta thriller in Zug and St Gallen" is the headline of the story that reports on the existence of Clarity Trade & Finance SA, based in the canton [...]

Watch this first: April 21st, 2017. Next read this: Edward Zammit Lewis: Ali Sadr was only carrying clothes. Then read this: When Edward Zammit Lewis paid a million euro to the air company that carries bags … with clothes. Now watch this. Someone in Dubai was watching. https://youtu.be/mBoHcNGjSks Expensive way of carrying the laundry.

Unlike Edwin Vassallo I am not a religious person. And unlike Edwin Vassallo I do not wish to dive into the abortion debate at a point when Labour plants the issue to distract the nation from its leadership’s crimes. But I cannot resist logic when I see it and I see plenty in Edwin Vassallo’s [...]

Outside the Malta Financial Services Authority building this afternoon. Is that a delivery or a collection?

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Maria Efimova is a Russian national currently in an Athens prison waiting for a hearing on an extradition request made by Malta where she is wanted to answer for a complaint filed by her former employer, Pilatus Bank plc, that accuses her of misappropriating less than €2,000. Normally such a matter [...]

Edward Scicluna stood in Parliament defending the decision of the MFSA not to use its powers at law to suspend Pilatus Bank’s banking license. He patronisingly attempted to explain the nuance, too obscure for us mere mortals to comprehend, of the distinction between Ali Sadr as Chairman and Director of the Bank and the bank [...]

Eleven months ago this week we were all following news as it broke minute by minute. Daphne Caruana Galizia reports Pilatus Bank holds evidence Michelle Muscat owns Egrant. Michelle Muscat denies it. Joseph Muscat says there's nothing to investigate. Lawrence Cutajar eats fried rabbit. Ali Sadr sneaks out of the bank with bags. If we [...]

Maria Efimova called me from a pay-phone in the woman's prison in Athens this morning asking me to pass her thanks to all those who have been and are supporting her. She told me she has been informed of the statements of support since the beginning of her detention in Malta and outside and she [...]

Faithful Edward Zammit Lewis has been wheeled out to insist on TV that Ali Sadr was only carrying bags that fateful night 11 months ago when he was caught on camera carrying heavy bags out of the back door of his bank in the dead of night. It's fascinating that Edward Zammit Lewis does not [...]

(18:20. Adds note below) Someone known to me was at the Commission briefing on their 6 monthly report in the presence of Edward Scicluna still shaken from being woken up early yesterday with news Ali Sadr had been detained. Here's a summary of today's proceedings. At the European Semester (lavish) breakfast meeting, an upbeat introduction [...]

Daphne Caruana Galizia, Peter Caruana Galizia and Andrew Borg Cardona were awarded €12,000 in damages today in a total of 6 libel suits they filed against the Labour party media and exponents of the Labour party for alleging the law firm of Peter Caruana Galizia and Andrew Borg Cardona were awarded government contracts due to [...]

Doubts have been cast on whether Cyprus police went through with filing an international arrest warrant against Maria Efimova following a complaint filed four months ago by a Russian jeweller she worked for over 4 years ago. In an interview with Greek TV news site tvxs.gr, Athens-based lawyer Alexandros Papasteriopoulos clarified Maria Efimova was only [...]