Magistrate Doreen Clarke today "accepted a request" made for an inquiry on OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi following their being named in the Panama Papers, former Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil said in a statement on the social media
But the government, in reply, said that the magistrate had ruled that no new inquiry should take place but that an additional note should be made in the existing inquiry so as no duplication of procedures takes place.
Busuttil filed a court application on 8 March, arguing that Malta’s institutions had “flagrantly and consistently” failed to act against Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri over the three-year period since the Panama Papers leak.
In his application, Busuttil had argued that the “institutional paralysis” preventing an investigation into the Panama Papers scandal was in breach of EU law.
The government said that, in her ruling, the magistrate said that there should be no new inquiry but that Magistrate Charmaine Galea, who is already conducting an investigation, should consider what Busuttil is arguing as part of the inquiry,
Magistrate Clarke, the government said, described Busuttil's move as an overlap of an investigation that Magistrate Galea started on 28 September
In a 77-page application filed in March, the former PN leader had repeated his call for an investigation into the allegations arising from the leaked documents.
He said the country’s institutions failed to act against Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi and OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri over a three-year period following revelations in the Panama Papers about secretive offshore structures they had opened.
He argued that this constitutes a breach of the Treaty of the European Union and the EU Charter on Fundamental Human Rights.
The applications states that there is incontrovertible evidence that the subject matter of the crimes it alleges still exists in the shape of paper trails and electronic correspondence which is found on computers and servers in several offices in Malta.
Other documents include Know Your Client (KYC) forms relating to Mizzi and Schembri’s New Zealand trusts, copies of bearer certificates for Hearnville and Egrant Inc and a report by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit into Mizzi, which he says concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that he had committed or attempted to commit money laundering offences.
The former PN leader argued that the failure by various institutions to act against the pair was also I breach of domestic laws and the EU’s anti-money laundering directive.
In January, the appeals court presided by Judge Giovanni Grixti ruled against a request for an inquiry into the Panama Papers, which Busuttil had filed shortly after the 2017 election.
A magistrate had ruled in favour of an inquiry but the decision was appealed by the people indicted by Busuttil, including the Prime Minister, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. The appeal dragged on after Busuttil objected to it being heard by now-retired judge Antonio Mizzi.
The case eventually ended up in Grixti's lap after Antonio Mizzi retired and in a ruling this year said the allegations made by Busuttil were "speculative" because they were based on his views and that of third parties without clearly indicating what and who committed the criminal behaviour.