Following Lovin Malta’s report that Joseph Muscat accepted a Bulgari watch worth an undefined number of tens of thousands of euro from Yorgen Fenech, Repubblika today filed a report asking the police to investigate this as a bribe. The wristwatch was handed over when Yorgen Fenech’s Electrogas Consortium needed most desperately the government’s good will. [...]
Joseph Muscat has tweeted his wishes for Christmas. Il- #Milied it-Tajjeb / Merry #Christmas -JM — Joseph Muscat (@JosephMuscat_JM) December 25, 2019 The disgraced soon to be former prime minister of Malta behaves like a dying regime that stubbornly refuses to understand what is going on around it. Joseph Muscat is not alone. Even as [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Now everyone says they regret Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri were not fired three years ago. It’s too late for that. But what we’re doing now is lining up for the regrets we’re going to express three years from now. "We will regret not reforming the partitocracy [...]
I’m not going to join the bandwagon of the shocked and disappointed. Ivan Camilleri was thrown out of The Times because his former employer has reason to believe Ivan Camilleri used information he became aware of at work and tipped off Yorgen Fenech that the police were after him for Daphne’s murder. Shock, disappointment and [...]
When soon-to-be (but not soon enough) ex-PM Joseph Muscat had done his snivelling big-girl’s blouse act after he had published the conclusions of Magistrate, now Judge, Bugeja’s report on the ownership of Egrant Inc, many were signally unimpressed. You see, when a judicial officer uses words, these are used with precision (and quite a bit [...]
Chris Cardona is saying the Labour Party should kick out Keith Schembri now. Presumably because he lost his phone? Because you'd have to wonder what changed now. A lot of people need to trace back what they've said about Keith Schembri even very recently. These are Robert Musumeci and Emanuel Cuschieri. Do they still think [...]
The current state of play is truly disconcerting. Keith Schembri remains free in spite of the fact that his contortions on the witness stand fool no one, except it would seem, the entire police force. His excuses are childish. ‘I was reading and did not know I was supposed to be in court.’ ‘I lost [...]
My piece in this month's edition of the Money Magazine. Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad is a household name in Malta. It was not always so. When he walked into the finance minister’s office in 2012 he was unknown. And he would remain largely anonymous outside the corridors of power until much later. Mr Nejad [...]
This is a time for people to walk the talk and show us where they stand. The last month has been filled with shocking revelations clearly implicating that Joseph Muscat's Chief of Staff and most trusted advisor, Keith Schembri was fully aware and directly involved in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. That's right, [...]
MEPs were asked today to vote on whether Joseph Muscat should fuck off pronto or enjoy his last Christmas in Castille. Almost all of them said he should fuck off pronto. The list is so long it's boring. So let's look at the list of the people who said they're fine with Joseph Muscat staying [...]
Posted by Corinne Vella under the 6th post this morning on the publication of the Egrant inquiry. Malta's failure to investigate the Panama Papers - as other countries with poorer democratic credentials than ours have done - is directly linked to Daphne's assassination. Egrant Inc. is a detail in a much wider web of intrigue, [...]
581 MEPs voted in favour of a resolution urging the European Commission to immediately "start a dialogue" with Malta to fix its disregard for the rule of law. They are clearly not impressed by Owen Bonnici and his broom. Only 26 MEPs voted against the motion most of them right-wing nationalists for whom no European [...]
The opposition is not a commenter on current events. It has a constitutional role of keeping the government in check and it should do more than talking. Its battlefield should principally be parliament but that institution has been reduced to a mere shadow of what it should properly be. Going to the courts in this [...]
The findings of the report published over a year ago exonerate and exculpate the Muscats leaping from the fact that the inquiry did not find evidence they owned Egrant to the conclusion that they can’t have owned it. As far as I can see, and that judgement might change after a thorough reading of the [...]
In recommending Maria Efimova is investigated for calumny and perjury after her testimony proved providential for the state to understand the fraud that Pilatus Bank was, the inquiry clearly showed it never understood what a whistle-blower is. Unlike every other witness with the exception of Jonathan Ferris that is quoted in the inquiry, Maria Efimova [...]
However limited the terms of reference of the inquiry may have been, given the allegations about Egrant and given the context in which the company was activated together with Hearnville and Tillgate, it is perfectly legitimate police work for one to seek to establish who the “bearer” of the Egrant shares was between March 2013 [...]
I know of at least one: evidence that Michelle Buttigieg, Michelle Muscat’s business partner in the fake business branded Buttardi, settled in one fell swoop a mortgage for an apartment in Manhattan, New York days after she was alleged to have received a portion of a bung paid to Michelle Muscat by the daughter of [...]
Joseph Muscat spent the last eighteen months pretending to lose his cool because Simon Busuttil forged documents to frame him for a crime. The day an extract of the report was published last year he made an act of being unable to hold back his emotions and burst into tears in a press conference. For [...]
Whatever blood, sweat and tears Aaron Bugeja put into this job and however impressive a pile of 1,501 pages may be, this inquiry report shows how woefully inadequate our institutions are in combatting money laundering and financial crime. Malta may claim it is a world class financial jurisdiction. It has adopted laws of tax havens [...]
