Prime Minister insists new Egrant ‘proof’ is ‘fake,’ police acted ‘as soon as they could’
Busuttil demands PM stop using family to gain sympathy from public
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has fended off accusations about his wife being the owner of Panamanian company Egrant Inc. by calling a reproduction of the declaration of trust which names Michelle Muscat as the ultimate beneficial owner, “fabricated”.
The two mainstream party leaders faced-off in a heated debate yesterday evening on popular current affairs programme Xarabank, to address allegations made by journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia.
On Thursday evening, she alleged that the owner of Egrant Inc is the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat, and that the company received US$1.017 million from the daughter of the Azerbaijani president Leyla Aliyeva, through her Dubai company. She alleged the transaction was facilitated through Pilatus Bank of Ta’ Xbiex, Malta.
Shortly before the programme started, the controversial blogger uploaded a text on her personal blog which she claims to be two declarations of trusts showing that shares in Egrant Inc are held by Mossack Fonseca nominees for “Mrs Michelle Muscat”, also providing her date of birth, 16/05/1974.
It must be said that this is not a screenshot of the alleged documents, but an alleged copy and paste of the text. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his wife have vehemently denied these claims, called for authentic proof, and have described the allegation as a “frame-up”.
The Prime Minister repeatedly challenged the PN leader to endorse the text uploaded by Mrs Caruana Galizia. Dr Busuttil hit back by asking: “how is anybody expected to believe you after the way you tried to deny the Panama Papers scandal? Why have we never heard of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit investigation about the affair?” Dr Busuttil reminded the Prime Minister.
Dr Busuttil stressed the crucial fact that the police only entered Pilatus Bank hours after the allegations had been made, and that the chairman and risk manager filmed leaving the bank through an emergency door with large bags meant that the proof had been allowed to walk out the door.
Dr Muscat claimed that the police arrived at the bank “as soon as they could”.
The PN leader hit out at Dr Muscat for using his family as a shield to gain the sympathy of the public, resulting in the Prime Minister promising to stop blogger and OPM aide Glenn Bedingfield from writing about Dr Busuttil’s family as he has done so in the past.
Turning to the alleged registered dates on the text presented by Mrs Caruana Galizia, the Prime Minister argued that if the text is genuine then the August 2015 date would mean that Mrs Muscat should have been named in the Panama Papers leak, alongside Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri. Panama Papers refers to the leak of documents exposing the dealings of Mossack Fonseca and its clients.
Dr Busuttil conceded that this was a good point, however made reference to an e-mail exchange
between a Nexia BT employee and Mossack Fonseca.
“This is because the e-mail leaked was about the companies of Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri and the third person. On Egrant, the e-mails read: ‘it [the person] will be an individual who I will speak to you about over Skype to give you the details’”.
“Who could be more important than Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri?” argued Dr Busuttil.
In the text for both alleged declaration of trusts, it says that the address registered to Egrant Inc is:
“EGRANT INC., 807956S, of The Penthouse, Suite 2, Capital Business Centra, Entrance C, Triq taz-Zwejt, San Gwann, SGN3000, Malta”.
Dr Muscat argued that the text of documents uploaded by Mrs Caruana Galizia is “fake”, because Egrant Inc. is a company registered in Panama, but the registered address in the text as can be seen above, is San Gwann.
Responding personally to this claim, Mrs Caruana Galizia posted on her personal blog that the Prime Minister “knows full well that the San Gwann office address is that of Nexia BT, and at the time also Mossack Fonseca Malta.
“The address given for Egrant Inc is at Brian Tonna’s office. Brian Tonna is the one who made the arrangements for the company, and it is perfectly normal for lawyers and accountants to have client companies use their office address.”
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat argued that the bottom line is that the PN leader is making serious allegations without concrete proof, and that bank transfers of such a high amount are always accompanied by an electronic record which cannot be deleted.
He said the magistrate heading the inquiry has access to such international records, and that therefore, his name will be cleared.