Socialist MEP Ana Gomes said she had doubts in the whole Maltese judiciary system when asked by The Malta Independent what her thoughts are about the Egrant inquiry conclusions by Magistrate Aaron Bugeja.
"I know the limitations of the judiciary in the Malta case”, she said.
Speaking to this newsroom, Gomes said that she knows that whatever the judiciary does, ultimately it is up to the police force and the Attorney General on whether to decide to press charges. In this respect, Gomes said that she knows that there are reports from the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) that were not followed up by the police in pressing charges, and that inquiries – such as the one published on Sunday in relation to the Egrant case – may not lead to any police action.
She also said that institutions such as the FIAU and the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) were not doing their jobs well; an assertion which was confirmed, she said, by the European Banking Authority (EBA) last week.
As a result, Gomes explained, “the whole law enforcement framework in Malta is very conducive for all sorts of organised crime and money launderers to operate in Malta and out of Malta throughout the European Union”.
Pressed for her reaction to the Egrant magisterial inquiry, Gomes said that she was “not surprised” with the outcome, but at the same time she wouldn’t have been surprised if the conclusion would have been the opposite.
Gomes reminded that none of the reports that she had co-signed as part of her work in the European Parliament contained a position on Egrant as they were waiting for the conclusion of the investigation.
Having read just the conclusions of the magisterial inquiry, as the full 1,500 page report remains unavailable, Gomes added that the published conclusions, “do not identify clearly who or what Egrant was serving for”, she said.
Still speaking about the conclusions of the inquiry, Gomes commented that from what she had heard and seen, a lot of the investigations relied on declarations of Mossack Fonseca officials, with some suggest that these cannot be taken as reliable evidence as these officials were there simply to “fake and obfuscate” whatever was necessary. Gomes herself in fact continued by saying that the statements of Mossack Fonseca officials “cannot be taken as determining evidence of anything” because of this.”
The MEP said that she had read comments which implied that Karl Cini, one of Nexia BT partners, had not been “properly questioned” about his role in the opening of Egrant. Whilst saying that, yes, the government is saying that the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat is in the clear, the question remains; “who was behind Egrant?”
Asked about a tweet that she re-tweeted from PN MP and former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil back in January, a tweet which read that the only reason that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had not sacked MinisterKonrad Mizzi and his Chief of Staff Keith Schembri is that “if they go, he must go too”, and whether this meant that she had called for his resignation, she denied this and said that she only called for him to act against the two members of his government “that are provenly corrupt”, these being Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. Indeed, she said that when she re-tweets things on Twitter “it doesn’t mean that I agree” with the contents.
However, she said, that Muscat “must” and “should get rid of these two people who are corrupt”. In this sense Gomes makes a reading and asks; “who is in control? Who commands? Is it the Prime Minister or is it these two corrupt people who command?” As a socialist, she said, she is very disturbed that “there has been no action against these two people exposed as seeing totally corrupt.”
Asked if the conclusions of the inquiry do show that therule of lawin Malta prevails, she confirmed that the outcome of the Egrant inquiry had made no changes whatsoever on her views on this subject. She said that there were different aspects to this matter. Some, she said, had to do with corruption. In this sense she said that by keeping “proven corrupt people” in the government it suggests that nothing is being done to fight corruption.
Her convictions on rule of law in Malta have been further reinforced in recent days following the conclusions of the EBA on the way the FIAU and MFSA did act or did not act on the Pilatus Bank case.
The most serious element of the rule of law situation, Gomes said, is the one that relates to the assassination of the slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Gomes is one of the co-signatories of a report on the investigations into this killing, a report which said that the investigations were stalling.
S&D Group President statement
S&D Group President Udo Bullmann said: “We are satisfied to see that an independent judicial inquiry has cleared the Prime Minister of Malta and his wife from all allegations. The case shows how important it is to handle such accusations in an open and transparent way and not to prejudge.
When international forensic experts find out that accusations are based on forged documents and false signatures, this is more than alarming. This shows how much energy was invested into the false accusations.
It is deeply worrying that Malta’s opposition party tried to take advantage of the situation by leading a campaign against the government. This type of campaigning endangers democracy and rule of law, and undermines trust in political parties and institutions.
We will continue to support the progressive work of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his fight for the economic and social wellbeing of the Maltese people.”