PN MP Simon Busuttil and MEP David Casa today filed a court application requesting a magisterial inquiry in relation to the recent revelations by the Daphne Project on Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi and OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.

Addressing the media after presenting the court application, Busuttil stated: “This week’s revelations are damning. Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri have been taking everyone for a ride and in the process they have sheltered behind the protection of Joseph Muscat. The longer they continue running the country the deeper our country’s reputation will sink.”

David Casa said: “Daphne Caruana Galizia has been vindicated. Resignations are not enough. The evidence against Mizzi and Schembri is overwhelming. They must be brought to justice and Joseph Muscat must shoulder responsibility”.

Simon Busuttil and David Casa were represented by their lawyer Jason Azzopardi. “We presented this application before the on-duty magistrate (Francesco Depasquale). Simon Busuttil and David Casa should be called to testify in the coming days," he said.

Recently, reports read that 17 Black was listed as the ‘main client’ and ‘possible payer/sender’ of Tillgate and Hearnville, the offshore Panamian companies owned by OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi, leaked emails obtained by German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and published by Times of Malta as part of the Daphne Project show.

A consortium of 18 news organisations are pursuing the stories that had been followed by slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, and will be publishing the work. The news organisations include the New York Times, The Guardian, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, the newspaper behind the Panama Papers revelations. The project (dubbed the Daphne Project) was organised by an investigative non-profit organisation called Forbidden Stories.

The court application makes mention of the news reports, and highlights the content. It mentions that investigators from the FIAU had found that Dubai company 17 Black received a payment totalling $1.4 million (€1.1 million) from a Seychelles company called Mayor Trans (which reports say is owned by an Azerbaijani national).

They say that Minister Konrad Mizzi ‘secretly visited’ Azerbaijan a number of times after March 2013. They also note that €1.4 million was sent to 17 Black in November 2015 through Latvian Bank ABLV, “which the US had a few months ago declared was a money laundering machine for corrupt politicians, and was shut down by the European Central Bank.”

Busuttil and Casa state that German news organisation Suddeutsche Zeitung unveiled that Nexia BT (financial advisors of Mizzi and Schembri) wrote that 17 Black had to pass on funds monthly to Mizzi and Schembri’s Panama companies, Tillgate and Hearneville.

They noted that Minister Konrad Mizzi personally signed the agreement between government and SOCAR for the LNG supply for Electrogas for 18-years.

The two politicians also note that in July 2015, no less than €161,000 was sent to 17 Black from Orion Engineering Ltd, which belongs to Mario Pullicino the local agent for the FSU.

They note that one month after this payment, Konrad Mizzi flew to Dubai.

A few days before this flight, they said, Nexia BT’s Karl Cini and Brian Tonna prepared documents to open a bank account in Dubai for Konrad Mizzi, “and possibly did the same for Keith Schembri.”

They note that the FIAU concluded that all this activity indicated reasonable suspicion of money laundering, “and/or the existence of the proceeds of crime”. They note that it stopped there and no steps were taken and the report was not even passed on to the police commissioner.

Busuttil and Casa, in the court application, said that the Nexia BT emails read: “the company accounts for Tillgate and Hearnville would generate around $2m within a year” and “this in Bahamas accounts, from 17 Black and from another Dubai company called Macbridge,”

The application reads that in a December 2015 email, Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri were meant to begin receiving €150,000 every month through 17 Black and Macbridge. They also took note of the recent Keith Schembri statement, where he “admitted that 17 Black and Macbridge had been potential clients of his business group”. They called this an admission for a tentative plan for money laundering and acts of corruption.

They allege that in response to a Parliamentary Question, Minister Konrad Mizzi had denied any links to 17 Black, and that now he has been found to have lied by the recent email revelations. They note that the reactions from Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi contradict each other. They note that a minister cannot be involved in commercial activities.

They state that Nexia BT failed to pass on the full correspondence regarding the Panama companies to the FIAU, and that Karl Cini delivered false testimony to the FIAU, as he said “all instructions and discussions with the clients were verbal,” they argue, adding that emails show this to be a lie.

They mention that, through the above, Minister Konrad Mizzi, OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna and Karl Cini, as well as Mario Pullicino broke a number of sections of the criminal code.

Casa and Busuttil said that they wanted to pass on this information to the inquiring magistrate, under oath, in order for the magistrate to be in a better position to establish the truth in “this clear case of money laundering, or attempted, corrupt, false declaration, criminal association, bribery etc.”

The two then asked for the launch of a new inquiry into the recent revelations.