Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi will not have to resign after all, as parliamentary records prove that he submitted a Russian-language email promoting the “individual investor programme” before it was actually approved in parliament.
The email was presented in late October, when Dr Azzopardi, the opposition’s home affairs spokesman, contributed to the debate on the programme which his party criticises as the selling of Maltese citizenship.
But as he made his concluding remarks, Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia insisted that the email submitted by Dr Azzopardi was not in Russian: he even said that this was confirmed by three translators. This prompted the MP to insist that he would resign if he had not submitted a Russian-language email, and to challenge the minister to resign if he had.
Official records on the House of Representatives’ website www.parlament.mt, however, show that Dr Azzopardi did submit a Russian-language email after all, although it also suggests why Dr Mallia made his assertion.
As it turns out, Dr Azzopardi submitted two versions of the email: the first when he started his address in parliament on 28 October.
This version, however, had been wrongly formatted, an issue which boils down to encoding problems. As a result, the Cyrillic alphabet characters which would appear on Russian-language computers were replaced by the Latin alphabet characters which would appear on computers using western European languages.
A quick analysis confirms that this email was in badly-encoded Russian: decoded, it opens with the greeting “hello, hope that you are well.”
Dr Azzopardi, however, concluded his address on the next day, and once more presented the email. This time, the email is clearly in Russian, and was written by Artem Alexeev, the managing partner of Henley & Partners subsidiary Henley Estates, on 14 October.
Translated, the email reads as follows:
“We would like to inform you that we expect to launch the new immigration program for the acquisition of citizenship of Malta in November this year – you will find a presentation on the programme in the appendix.
“The Maltese citizenship programme is not yet operational: this presentation is being distributed to customers on our database primarily to determine the number willing to participate.
“If you are interested, Maltese citizenship enables you to live and work and study in Europe and the UK without any limits throughout the year. A Maltese passport will be made available in about a month, provided that due diligence brings positive results.
“If you have any questions, please let us know and we will be happy to answer them.”
The presentation itself was also tabled by Dr Azzopardi – in properly-encoded Russian – and revealed that Henley & Partners is promoting a “fast-track option” for those who pay an additional 50%.
“Your file will be marked in a special way, and at every stage of consideration it will have priority over the files of other applicants. It will be dealt with by the managing partner of the Henley office through which you will be applying. Henley & Partners pledges to receive a response from the Maltese authorities within 90 days of the date of the application,” the presentation explains.
When contacted, Dr Azzopardi insisted that despite the possible source of confusion, Dr Mallia should not be excused for not looking into the email, which was presented at the beginning of a lengthy debate. He pointed out that he had also read out an English translation of the email in question.
In any case, the MP’s claim is vindicated, so his resignation is unnecessary. But Dr Mallia’s resignation will not necessarily follow, as he proved reluctant to accept Dr Azzopardi’s challenge: he had noted, perhaps sarcastically, that he had wanted the MP to remain in parliament since he was so capable.