The Attorney General has told a court that he had emailed a copy of the full Egrant inquiry to justice minister Owen Bonnici, despite refusing to give a copy to the Leader of the Opposition.
AG Peter Grech took the witness stand before judge Robert Mangion for a lengthy grilling by lawyer Vince Galea, appearing for Opposition leader Adrian Delia, who is demanding a copy of the inquiry. The Attorney General has so far refused to pass on a copy.
Grech had forwarded the inquiry to Bonnici as an attachment to a blank email, he said.
“After midday I had received a letter from Dr [Pawlu] Lia on behalf of the Prime Minister and his wife saying that the inquiry should be published…I didn’t feel it was right to just up and publish the inquiry as it was voluminous and needed to be read through.” Doing so would reveal methods and banking information related to third parties who were not in the public sphere, he said.
“I felt the PM’s argument was valid as he needed the full evidential basis of the inquiry. In my opinion…to be released to the PM, I felt this should be upheld. Subsequently the PM was taking advice to see whether or not to publish the inquiry. The Minister for Justice asked if I had an electronic copy and I passed it on to him as he is a lawyer who was assisting the PM in the analysis of the inquiry.”
Galea seized on this point. “Is the Minister for Justice therefore a lawyer for the Prime Minister?”
“I know he was assisting him on the topic of the inquiry and therefore I passed on a copy to him. I understand that the Prime Minister isn’t going to be looking at it alone, he has people assisting him in studying it.”
Asked if the copy given to the Prime Minister had been altered, Grech replied “the office of the AG doesn’t redact its inquiries.”
Galea pressed the Attorney General as to why he had not released a copy to the Leader of the Opposition or at least informed him that it had been concluded, but Grech replied that he had released a statement once he was given a copy of the report.
“I made it clear in the statement I released in July that the inquiry wasn’t going to be published in full, despite requests coming in from all angles. It contained private banking information belonging to people who had nothing to do with the issue…I didn’t feel it was right to be made public.”
Grech said this inquiry was different from those into the Paqpaqli crash or PlusOne collapse – both of which were made public – in that “this one has parts that need to be investigated further. Publishing could cause harm to privacy and future investigations,” he explained.
Had he ever shown journalists copies of inquiries, asked Galea.
“There was a case where someone died at Depot and it was decided where the process verbal be made available to journalists, but copies were not given," the AG said. "The same with an inquiry into an explosion at a fireworks factory. The PlusOne and Paqpaqli inquiries I had given copies to the minister of justice on his request. I knew he was going to publish them.”
But those inquiries had conclusively finished, blame allocated and people arraigned, he said. This was not the case with Egrant.
“Were the conclusions published in their entirety?” asked Galea. “The principal conclusions were,” replied the Attorney General.
The case continues on October 9.
PN reaction
The Attorney General admitted to withholding information from the Opposition leader when he refused to give Adrian Delia a copy of the Egrant inquiry report, the Nationalist Party have said in a statement.
The PN have accused the Attorney General of attempting to silence Delia, whilst at the same time, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and other officials gave their reactions on the inquiry.
They continue by saying that the decision taken by the Attorney General goes against the Maltese and European Constitutions, whilst also preventing Delia from following out his duty as Opposition leader.
In their statement they also criticize his decision to send a soft-copy of the inquiry to Minister for Justice Owen Bonnici. This due to the fact that by his own admission, the Attorney General's reasoning was that Bonnici is Muscat's lawyer, even though he is not permitted to do so.
"The idea held by the Attorney General, that the Minister for Justice is the Prime Minister's lawyer, has major political implications."
They ended their statement by insisting that the Attorney General's position is no longer tenable, and that the Nationalist Party will not allow anyone to be above the law or the people whilst "Adrian Delia will continue to fight in favor of democracy and freedom of expression".