A former Pilatus Bank official was allowed to leave the country despite being subject to an arrest warrant due to inaction from both the Attorney General and the police, Repubblika claimed on Monday morning.

Repubblika President Robert Aquilina filed a challenge in court against the AG and the Commissioner of Police – the first of its kind in Malta – on Monday morning for them failing to execute the arrest in question even though a warrant had been signed in March 2021.

The official in question, Aquilina said, is former Pilatus Bank operations supervisor Mehmet Tazli.

Tazli testified in Malta on 28 October 2021 – just a month after the police had filed charges against Pilatus Bank and its money laundering reporting officer Claudanne Sant Fournier – but was not arrested.

“This is scandalous. The AG and Police’s decision not to obey the arrest warrants signed by the magistrate, has allowed these people to leave Malta, as if nothing happened. Victoria Buttigieg and Angelo Gafà are making a farce of the judicial process,” Aquilina said.

“Organised crime in Malta has its mind at rest with Buttigieg, Gafa and Alexandra Mamo at the helm of the country’s law enforcement. We cannot allow this state of impunity carry on,” he added.

Aquilina said that there was no route left but to take the action they had taken today.

“We are requesting the courts to take action on the AG for not filing the charges requested by the magistrate in the Pilatus inquiry,” Aquilina said.

He did point out though that Repubblika could face difficulties in the case because it is technically not an “injured party”, a legal anomaly which was pointed out by the Venice Commission in 2020.

An affidavit filed as part of the case by lawyer and former PN MP Jason Azzopardi detailed how Tazli had been allowed to walk free.

Azzopardi said that he had received word that in October 2021, after the 2 September 2021 arraignment of a former Pilatus Bank employee, together with the bank itself, an application had been filed requesting a variation of the freezing order imposed on them during the arraignment.

The affidavit stated that they had been arraigned as a result of the conclusions of a magisterial inquiry into the bank’s operations and had cost the taxpayer €7.5 million.

 

“I know that for the hearing of this application of Pilatus Bank before the criminal court on that day of October 28, 2021, two lawyers from the Attorney General's Office were present, who did counter exams to Mehmet Tazli, i.e the same office which had to bring in the witness to Court after a magisterial inquiry that cost millions. They didn't bring him, not because they didn't order his arrest but because they made the questions before him in court and they let him go without face,” Azzopardi said.