A former Labour Party activist claiming knowledge of kickbacks in an illegal identity and citizenship scheme, has come forward to tell a Maltese court of law all he knows about an allegedly criminal ruse.

In the court application, the former activist claims ID cards belonging to deceased foreign-born Maltese citizens were given to other foreign residents, for them to vote for the Labour Party.

Adel Ali Hassan claims his residence permit was revoked in October 2021 after having refused to assist the then-minister responsible for identity and citizenship, Alex Muscat, in his electoral campaign for 2022.

Hassan, a one-time Labour activist, ostensibly refused to give assistance to Muscat because his complaints about corruption inside the Transport Malta testing and licensing section, where he had been employed, had fallen on deaf ears.

The man, whose lawyer Jason Azzopardi argues is a whistleblower, says he became personally acquainted with a ruse to grant driving licences to candidates who had failed their driving tests.

Hassan, an interpreter by profession, was a Labour Party activist who also was elected secretary of the local Balzan club in 2008. In 2015, Transport Malta employed Hassan as a translator for candidates sitting for the written segment of the driving test.

Five years later in 2020, as Hassan declared in a statement to the financial crimes investigations department, a TM official, Philip Edrik Zammit, would mark out the candidates he had to ensure they pass the exam. Additionally, Hassan was told not to list these names in his invoice for payment.

Hassan also claims that TM official Clint Mansueto – who oversaw the testing department – abusively clawed a percentage of his own payment for translation services, as well as foisting on him forceful demands to buy him drinks and gifts.

Hassan said Mansueto would list a number of Italian and Moroccan driving candidates, respectively seeking employment in Maltese cab companies and public transport “by claiming they came under recommendation from the minister.”

Hassan said his complaints to the minister’s aide Jesmond Zammit (at the time a consultant to transport minister Ian Borg) and OPM customer care official Sandro Craus, fell on deaf ears. “They laughed at his claims,” his lawyers said.

Hassan is also alleging that a number of Maltese citizens of foreign nationality, were not issued with a death certificate upon their demise, but instead were transferred onto other naturalised persons with the intention of having them vote for Labour.

Hassan claims to know of thousands in cash payments paid out to obtain a Maltese identity card, whose number was arguably that of a deceased citizen.