Magistrate Aaron Bugeja who has been investigating claims that the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat is the owner of the third secret Panamanian company Egrant, has concluded his inquiry and the findings have been handed over to the Attorney General, Peter Grech.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said in a tweet that he has asked the Attorney General to publish the inquiry after he concludes his internal review. According to the Maltese legal system, it is the Attorney General who decides whether an inquiry can be published or not.

The AG (below), in a statement, said that the report, which he is reviewing, is voluminous.

The Egrant inquiry was launched by the Prime Minister after allegations surfaced that his wife is the ultimate beneficiary owner of a third company opened in Panama, in tandem with those opened by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and Minister Konrad Mizzi, whose wheelings and dealings were exposed in the Panama Papers.

The allegations that Michelle Muscat owned the company were made by assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose source was Pilatus Bank whistleblower Maria Efimova. Efimova says she had seen documents at the bank showing that Michelle Muscat was the mysterious company’s owner.

The Egrant company was opened just after the 2013 election with those of Mizzi and Schembri.

Caruana Galizia had famously broken the news on 20 April 2017, and matters snowballed that night. After Caruana Galizia published the story on her blog, the bank's former chairman, Ali Sadr and an employee were caught by a Net News crew leaving the bank’s Ta Xbiex premises in the dead of night with two pieces of luggage.

Net News had also tracked down the Police Commissioner that same night, who as the accusation goes, instead of moving to seal off the bank’s premises as the situation was developing, continued enjoying a fenkata in Mgarr unperturbed.

At around midnight, hours after the news broke and the bank’s chairman was far away from the premises, Prime Minister Muscat asked his lawyers to contact the police commissioner and ask him to inform the duty magistrate to investigate the allegations, preserve all evidence and instruct the AG and police commissioner to take all necessary steps.

Prime Minister Muscat and his wife have vehemently denied the accusations, which Muscat described as the biggest political calumny the country has ever seen.

He vowed to resign if the inquiry into the matter found any connection to him, a vow he renewed yesterday.

(Magistrate Aaron Bugeja)

The Opposition, in a terse statement, said it had taken note of the inquiry’s finalisation, and that the scope of this inquiry was to see whether Michelle Muscat was the ultimate beneficial owner of Egrant Inc, whether the Prime Minister or a member of his family, or John Dalli, Keith Schembri, or Konrad Mizzi had bank accounts with Pilatus Bank, and whether they were involved in suspicious financial transactions through Pilatus, or in acts of corruption or money laundering with Azerbaijani nationals.

The PN said it will give its reaction once the inquiry is published, and that the party wanted it published in full.

The Labour Party, also in a statement, said that the Prime Minister has always been clear that he would resign if even the slightest truth about the allegations were to be found, and asked whether others will do the same.

PN MP Simon Busuttil, the Opposition leader at the time of the allegations and the party’s current spokesperson for good governance, tweeted that the report should be published immediately.

“It is in the public interest that the Egrant inquiry report is published, published immediately and published in full,” he said.

The social media went mad yesterday when the news that the inquiry had been finalised, with Labour politicians and supporters in their droves vocalising support for the Prime Minister, and with their opposition counterparts crying foul.

Once such an inquiry is concluded, the magistrate draws a report, which is made up of all testimony and is known as the ‘proces verbal’. This report is then sent to the Attorney General, together with recommendations, which was done yesterday.

Should the proces verbal, which contains all expert evidence as well as testimony, include a recommendation that action be taken, a copy is sent to the police.

If there is no such recommendation and the Attorney General believes that further investigation should be carried out, he may ask the Magistrate to continue with his inquiry.

There is no procedure or obligation for a Magistrate to inform the public that an inquiry has been concluded. It is also up to the discretion of the Attorney General whether to publish the report or not, after a formal request is made. Such a request can be made by any ordinary citizen.

In addition to this, throughout the course of a Magisterial Inquiry, the magistrate and the police work together, with the magistrate overseeing the whole process, and the police carrying out the investigations. Police involved in a magisterial inquiry hold the rank of inspector, which is essential because the role of the police is clearly defined by law as the authority responsible to investigate any possible crimes and keep the public peace.