Alfred Mifsud, who is set to become governor of the Central Bank of Malta next month, has filed a police report for defamation against his former partner Anna Zelbst following reports appearing on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s website.

In a statement this morning, Mr Mifsud said he is “very serene that justice will prevail and I will be cleared of any accusations”.

This is Mr Mifsud’s full statement:

Further to my Media Release of 16 June 2016 it has now been confirmed that the source of information attributing to me charges of corruption and money laundering is my former partner Anna Zelbst with whom I shared a household and two children (now adults) between 1995 and 2006 and again between October 2012 till February this year. This confirms that the allegations are motivated by revenge and hate from a failed personal relationship.

I reiterate my denial of any impropriety as claimed related to the award for a new IT system at Mid-Med under my Chairmanship between December 1996 and December 1998. There are tens of persons who were involved in the evaluation of this very open and transparent tender and although the final formal decision was taken by the Board this reflected the recommendations of the evaluation teams who performed detailed analysis and testing.  At no stage was I as Chairman involved in any negotiations with suppliers or at any point tried to influence the evaluation teams in their considerations.  As to claims that Mid-Med in 1996 had a modern IT system in place and this was capriciously scrapped by me with bad intent, most employees of Mid-Med at the time will bear witness as to the absurdity of such a claim.

I have opened libel case against the media that originated these claims and now that the source has been identified I filed a report with the Police for defamation against Anna Zelbst.

These legal actions will take their course and I am very serene that justice will prevail and I will be cleared of any accusations.

I wish however to affirm in that making such accusations Ms Zelbst is not, as she tries to give the impression, motivated by any heroic act to sacrifice herself in order to expose my alleged wrongdoing and prohibit an unfit person from occupying a position of responsibility at the Central Bank of Malta. If this were so Ms Zelbst would have made such accusations when I was appointed Deputy Governor in spring 2015 as the position of Deputy Governor is also one of high responsibility. But at the time I was financing her daughter's grand wedding and her expensive jewellery for the event.   

Ms Zelbst is only speaking now because I did not submit to her demands as shown in the letter dated 01 May 2016 I am publishing herewith.  These demands are unreasonable especially coming on top of my offer for her to continue living in my Sliema luxury apartment with all expenses paid and having a leased car fully paid made available to her and a monthly living allowance which between forfeited rents and recurring expenses amounts to more than Euro 8,000 per month.   

However in spite of such generosity Ms Zelbst wanted more, considerably more, and blackmailed to torpedo my appointment to Governorship unless I concede her demands.

Choosing between being blackmailed by invented charges and risking non-appointment to Governorship I made the easy choice of not accepting being blackmailed for whatever reason and whatever consequences.

The rest will be settled in Court but I hereby certify that any payments that Anna Zelbst paid me between 1998 and 2006 are covered and explained in a public  deed of donation dated 02 September 2006 which is also attached herewith

Finally I must clarify that even before these so called revelations I never had any official confirmation of being appointed to Governorship and such decision rests with the Cabinet and the ECB.   I have no problem in being skipped from consideration for such a position if this is in the interest of the Organisation and the Country."