It is time for the Prime Minister to come clean and state his intentions regarding rogue oil trader George Farrugia, who had been given immunity from prosecution by the previous administration in return for turning state evidence in the Enemalta oil procurement scandal.

Let us set off from a legal point of view. So far, most of Mr Farrugia’s testimony to police and to the Public Accounts Committee has centred on his own activities. Granted, snippets of information about others who are embroiled in the web of corruption have emerged, but we have not heard him come out with any big ‘whoppers’ so far. Are the authorities aware that if immunity is revoked, Mr Farrugia will have the right to not testify about the case in court if summoned as a witness? In fact, the court will have the obligation to actually inform him that he should not answer any questions if he feels that he might incriminate himself in any way. Given that this whole mess stinks from top to bottom and it seems that we have only begun to scratch the surface of the whole affair, if Mr Farrugia is eventually charged and refuses to testify, some of the big fish embroiled in this scandal will most likely walk away scot-free.

Which brings us to another point. If the government does want to withdraw the immunity, then it should just come out and state as much. MaltaToday claims that it has emails in hand which further implicate Mr Farrugia. If so, then why did it not publish these emails when the story was originally leaked to them before the general election in 2013? More than an investigation, this was a massive leak on the eve of an election. It took a lot of courage from our fellow journalists at MaltaToday to publish that story which put the final nail in that government’s coffin, but the new emails revealed last Sunday pose a serious ethical question: Were the emails published last Sunday passed on to MaltaToday in 2013 and kept in a folder for future stories? We don’t want to believe so. Or is there another finger in the pie supplying new material for publication with the intention of creating a backdrop to reverse the immunity grant?

 

Last Sunday, Minister Konrad Mizzi was forced to suspend Godwin Sant for allegedly accepting football tickets in exchange of sensitive information to Trafigura. We have to question the minister’s personal judgement in hand-picking that same person for the role of CEO in a specialised unit within his ministry before all this came to light. So who exactly is orchestrating this campaign and to what endeavour? Who stands to benefit if Mr Farrugia’s immunity is revoked? Who gets to walk away?