The Nationalist Party has called for the Egrant inquiry to be reopened after two of the key figures in the scandal – Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna and Karl Cini – were charged with, amongst other things, forgery and giving false information to a public official.
“The argument which has been used to dismiss the serious Egrant allegations was that documents were falsified,” PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami said in a press conference.
“Now we know that the people who set up the Panama companies [Nexia BT partners Brian Tonna and Karl Cini] are facing a number of charges, one of which is - wonder of wonders - the falsification of documents.”
Tonna and Cini are currently in jail after being remanded in custody following their arrest and arraignment on Saturday in connection with another corruption and graft scandal. They stood accused of money laundering and of falsifying documentation amongst other things.
Former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri – who was Joseph Muscat’s right-hand-man – was among 11 to be charged on Saturday, and 10 to be remanded in custody. Only 73-year-old Vincent Buhagiar was granted bail out of all those charged.
Fenech Adami referred to the Egrant inquiry, which came after Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote that Egrant – a secret Panama company set up along with two others, one which belonged to Konrad Mizzi and the other to Keith Schembri – belonged to Michelle Muscat, wife of the now former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
A magisterial inquiry led by now-Judge Aaron Bugeja however found no evidence linking Egrant to the Muscats – although it did not find out who owned the company as that was not part of its scope.
The inquiry also found that signatures on the alleged declarations of trust that were handed over to the magistrate by Pierre Portelli were falsified.
Fenech Adami said that it is in the national interest that the authorities investigate to whom Egrant belongs and why it was set up.
“We know that the architects of Egrant, as well as the Panama companies owned by Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi are currently in a prison cell”, Fenech Adami said, in reference to Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna and Karl Cini who were the duo who set the companies up for the clients.
Special focus is being given to Cini who had communicated the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of Egrant to Mossack Fonsena over Skype rather than in writing.
“We know that Schembri’s and Mizzi’s Panama companies were set up to receive money from 17 Black, which is owned by the suspected mastermind in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia [Yorgen Fenech]. Yes, the authorities have a duty to revisit the Egrant inquiry.”