Bankers who want to deceive will find a way of doing so and this is not necessarily picked up by companies supervising their operations, Andre Camilleri, former director-general of the Malta Financial Services Authority, said in court today.
He was testifying in the public inquiry into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Former judge Michael Mallia is chairing the inquiry board, while Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino and Judge Abigail Lofaro are the board’s other two members. The inquiry's terms of reference stipulate that it must be concluded within nine months since its start last December.
The public inquiry will have to determine whether any wrongful action or omission by or within any State entity could have facilitated the assassination of Caruana Galizia or failed to prevent it, particularly whether the State knew or should have known of risks to the journalist’s life “at the time” of her murder.
The inquiry board is bound to presenting the inquiry report, once it is completed, to the Prime Minister and Attorney General, to notify the public that the inquiry has been concluded and presented to the Prime Minister, and, most notably, to publish the report within eight working days from when it is delivered to the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister has to table the report in Parliament within five days of receiving it.
Follow the minute-by-minute proceedings below: Please refresh for latest updates
3.38pm: The next sitting will be on Friday at 11am.
3.37pm: In the next sitting, Ray Barbara, a close aide to former prime minister Joseph Muscat, and Kenneth Camilleri, one time part of Muscat's security detail, will testify.
3.33pm: Camilleri steps off the witness stand. This concludes today's session.
3.32pm: Going back to the dossier on Pilatus Bank, the witness says it shows what happened, meetings, inspections, deficiencies, references to FIAU, he says.
3.28pm: Audits are available to the public on the company registry website, explains the witness. A bank, in its earliest days, can have deficiencies, Camilleri explains.
3.27pm: He is asked about the alleged double accounting system at Pilatus bank. "Whoever wants to deceive will find a way to deceive and this may not necessarily be picked up by the supervisor. This becomes the responsibility of the Auditor of the bank. If shortcomings are found he, risks losing his licence to audit. I don't know if this was KPMG, " he adds.
3.25pm: The witness says that supervisory visits to banks would take place regularly and last up to two weeks.
3.22pm: Asked about Sai Mizzi or Brian Tonna, he says that they had not registered with him during his time. "Not even as directors," he says. There was no register of business introducers at the time.
3.20pm: He confirms that Ali Sadr Hashiminejad was introduced to Malta by audit firm KPMG.
3.18pm: In Malta there are 26 banks registered, of which only 6 offer services to the local public. The others were here to be like a pied a terre in the eurozone. The witness cannot recall whether the bank had told them about Azeri clients, but said that if there had been anything wrong at the time, Pilatus Bank would have not been given licence.
3.15pm: Seyed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, owner of the now defunct Pilatus Bank, had two asset management licenses from Switzerland. Not an easy jurisdiction to get it from, Camilleri remarks. After consulting with the Banking Act at the time, the council saw there was no reason to deprive him of the licence. But the licence is just step number one, he says. Every day a bank must be in compliance with various national and international regulations.
3.13pm: Up to 2002, the Central bank was in charge of licencing entities. It was only after this time that the MFSA would issue the licence. The decision for the withdrawal of the banking licence would come from Frankfurt, not Malta.
3.12pm: He was involved in the licensing of Pilatus Bank, he says. "I assume that the board has a copy of the dossier on Pilatus bank.” They do not.
3.11pm: Answering a question by the board he says he had finished from his role two years before the Panama Papers scandal.
3.10pm: There was strict segregation between the council and the board of governors (political appointees) and no interference was ever encountered by him, Camilleri says.
3.09pm: He worked at the MFSA between 1994 to 1996 and then 2002 to 2014 at which point he retired. He was initially the Chief Executive and later Director General of the financial services authority. Compliance and money laundering was not his direct responsibility, he says.
3.08pm: Lawyer Andre Camilleri steps up to the witness stand. He is the former director-general of the Malta Financial Services Authority.
3.07pm: That brings to an end to Beacon's testimony.
3.06pm: Daphne hadn't told her friends that she felt threatened. "She wasn't the type to sit down and gossip about it. If she felt threatened she would write about it."
3.04pm: Later on, the slain journalist's friends started to be targeted, leading to Caruana Galizia avoiding their company. She had said it was not fair on them to be put in the limelight because of their friendship. "The saddest thing is that besides her journalism there was so much more to her," Beacom muses. "She loved travelling, talking about food, music. There was her journalism, but she had a life besides that. If you needed to buy a gift, she was the perfect person to call."
3pm: Beacom mentions another episode: On another occasion, Daphne had told her that she had gone to a beach club and had come out of the sea to find a person photographing her on a mobile phone. "Things were getting... you didn't need to say anything, it was visible,” Beacon says. “Driving to work and seeing a billboard with Daphne's face on it and you think: why is she there?"
2.59pm: This was an occasion where Caruana Galizia had had an altercation with then Zurrieq mayor, Ignatius Farrugia. Caruana Galizia had taken refuge at the Franciscan convent from people who had been harassing her.
2.55pm: There were a couple of priests at the door. Beacom claimed to have ascertained that Daphne was behind the door and she had informed the police.
2.54pm: "Ohorguha minn hemm, ohorguha minn xagharha, dik mara hazina,” were some cries heard, Beacom says. (Get her out of there, pull her from her hair, she’s a bad woman).
2.53pm: They walked back towards Mdina and found a crowd of people on the side and a woman standing in the middle screaming obscenities at this doorway.
2.52pm: In March 2013 “I had gone to Mdina for lunch and had bumped into Peter Caruana Galizia and Daphne and had gone to the Rabat feast,” she says. They had weaved through the crowd and realised they had lost a part of the group, including Daphne.
2.51pm: Glorya Beacon will now testify.
2.50pm: Caruana Dingli steps off the stand.
2.49pm: Caruana Galizia was threatened at home and her dogs were poisoned and had suffered an arson attack, but she had not expressed a fear of being physically harmed to Caruana Dingli, the witness says.
2.46pm: "When he (Bedingfield) set up a website which he used to harass, insult, denigrate, smear and intimidate critics of the government he serves, and other such ‘enemies of the state and the people’, you should have been left in no doubt that he did it in consultation and conspiracy with the Prime Minister himself," Caruana Galizia had written.
2.44pm: Answering a question from the board she says that she noticed that the atmosphere had changed and there was more pressure around 2016 when the stories became riskier and heavier; also the attacks on Caruana Galizia became more personal and it was clear where they were originating from. Caruana Dingli quotes from an article Caruana Galizia had written in the Malta Independent, in which she described Glenn Bedingfield's website as "the Prime Minister's own project."
2.43pm: "Being something which was originating from the OPM, there is the whole machinery of government and you can no longer gauge the strength of your adversary," Caruana Dingli says.
2.42pm: Glenn Bedingfield's blog was one aspect, although the critics were not just one individual, she says. "In May 2016 we had gone to lunch in Valletta and there were two men who were clearly photographing and filming us." This ended up on the blog, she explains. She says that what upset Caruana Galizia the most was the fact that it was in the open and was based at the OPM. The Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, was implicitly endorsing it by allowing it to remain online.
2.41pm: Caruana Dingli, a columnist for the Sunday Times, says that in 2016 the attacks had changed and Caruana Galizia herself had felt that her adversary was no longer her equal, but the government. “You can no longer gauge the size and power of your adversary. It is quite intimidating. She felt the pressure,” says the witness.
2.35pm: “We used to meet in public, for coffees and meals and so on without incident. In the last years before she was killed there was tension. She was recognised. We were photographed, they ended up in the media, I was drawn into that as well just by virtue of being her friend,” Caruana Dingli says.
2.34pm: In the years before Caruana Galizia was killed, the public reaction to her work became much more tense, she says
2.33pm: She says she was a close friend of Caruana Galizia for 25 years.
2.32pm: Petra Caruana Dingli now takes the stand.
2.31pm: Vella says that as time passed, the term sorceress was transformed into a witch associated with a person being old, ugly and using black magic. Vella tells the board that she had found an obituary by then PL Deputy leader Toni Abela where the term "witch" was used.
2.28pm: On the 'Sahhara tal-Bidnija' title, she says that it was traced back to Lino Cassar, who used the term as a compliment - in the sense as an "enchantress", explains Vella. The source of the negative interpretation was difficult to trace, she says.
2.27pm: Corinne Vella takes the stand. She presents research she had done. A doctored image from an artwork with Daphne's face was found on Neville Gafa's facebook. "I cannot find any earlier instances," she said.
2.22pm: Judge Emeritus Mallia reads out a decree. The Board decrees: whilst it has no objection to the presence of the Attorney General during public testimony, it reserves the right to object when sittings are held behind closed doors. This to safeguard the integrity of the inquiry. It remains within the discretion of the board to allow the Attorney General to be present, say the judges.
2.17pm: The three judges have just entered the courtroom.
2.03pm: The women testifying today, Gloria Beacon and Petra Caruana Dingli, were friends of the late journalist
2pm: Sitting is to start soon.