The Egrant Story: a big mess
Normally, I am wary of stories that are published on social media without the accompanying evidence. Yet, what has been published till now about Egrant goes beyond the issue of fake news.
Dr Simon Mercieca is senior lecturer, Department of History
For the first time, the Prime Minister did not take the issue of the Panama Papers lightly. There can be no doubt that Daphne Caruana Galizia’s allegations are being taken very seriously by the government. In the process, this has helped strengthen the general perception that this is a true story. Allegations are continuously being made on social media, both about the Prime Minister and his wife, but never, as now, have they been taken so seriously. The Prime Minister’s reaction shows the impact that social media is having on local politics. This story was published after the Prime Minister invited the Leader of the Opposition to come out with any information about Egrant.
In forensic studies, there is an expression, which nicely describes what happened afterwards. This is called collateral evidence. Some prefer to call it conspiracy theories. Labour is, habitually, very cool when it comes to its communication strategy. For the first time, Labour has lost its sense of balance. It is in a state of panic. A journalist of The Times was violently shoved away by what, in the past, would have been defined as a thug. Today, the thug comes dressed in jacket and tie. These ‘thugs’ were attending an event related to Konrad Mizzi’s ministry. The manner these men handled the journalist are reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s. This is a wrong tactic. Mizzi’s men need to take lessons from the Prime Minister’s main security agent. He handles such situations with grace. I wish to express my admiration for Mizzi who dealt with the case fittingly without offering protection to this type of individual. Labour is now realizing that it has made a number of wrong decisions. This was also Muscat’s message on Xarabank.
The Prime Minister is now reaping the fruit of his previous erroneous decisions when yesmen were appointed to top positions. The appointment of the current police commissioner is a case in point. Instead of reassuring the public, this Commissioner of Police appears very weak. His bizarre behaviour sends the wrong messages to the general public. For this reason, I agree with the editor of The Independent, that the only honourable way for the Commissioner of Police is to resign.
Had the police commissioner been diligent, as is expected from a person holding such a post, on learning from the media that the Prime Minister was calling a press conference, he would have cancelled all personal engagements and made it to his office in Floriana. Let me make myself clear. The Commissioner of Police has a right to his private life and I don’t expect him to cancel his private engagements because of a post on private blog. Nor do I expect him to start any arbitrary investigation on stories that are published by the media. But once this post becomes a case of national interest, as a result of the Prime Minister’s reaction to it, then, yes, the police commissioner should have cancelled his personal engagements and sought the legal advice of the Attorney General for direction on whether he should start investigating or not. By his behaviour, the police commissioner weakened rather than strengthened the Prime Minister’s position in this whole mess.
Then, there was the rather odd behaviour of the chairman of the Pilatus Bank. The way the chairman and the bank’s Risk Manager acted gives rise to a number of questions. Rather conveniently, they were at the bank late at night, when this whole story was unfolding. They left the bank through the back door. They were “caught” leaving the building carrying bags. The immediate interpretation was that these bags were full of documents. Eventually, the bank manager stated that he was carrying a bag because he had just returned from the USA. Therefore, why did the chairman fail to make such a statement immediately, when he was being chased by a NET journalist instead of waiting for the following day? The best one can conclude is that this was a media disaster on the part of Pilatus Bank.
The story becomes even more entangled with the report appearing in The Malta Independent, on Friday, 21 April, that a flight left Malta for Azerbaijan, before making its way to Dubai. The latter two countries are in the news in connection with the transfer of large sums of money to Pilatus Bank. Eventually, it was explained that the plane in question was a cargo plane. Be that as it may, the coincidence is too blatant to pass unnoticed.
We then had the PM’s faux pas during Friday’s debate. The Prime Minister dubbed the document that shows that his wife is the holder of Egrant, a fake. The main reason given was the address provided was a house in Malta. The Prime Minister claimed that the address should be in Panama. Regrettably, Dr Simon Busuttil was caught on the wrong foot. Clearly, he was unaware of this new piece of evidence before he went on the programme. This reflects badly on the internal organization of the PN. The Prime Minister has definitely a more efficient team. But the fact is that the Prime Minister was caught lying as the address was of Nexia BT. It is the same address that appears in the Panama Papers in connection with the companies and trusts of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.
Frankly, I would have never imagined that Labour would lose its media ploy so abysmally. Therefore, it is very difficult to believe that all these collateral facts reported in the media are not related to the Egrant story. Faced with these serious allegations, Muscat forgot all concepts of cosmopolitanism and returned to basic family values. He considered this story as a direct affront to his wife and children. He knew that the most offended by such news is the conservative voter. It is to this voter that Muscat is primarily appealing.
The finishing touch came when the Prime Minister asked for a magisterial inquiry. In truth, this was the right decision, but it came too late. It came after the people at Pilatus bank were caught leaving with bags. In this climate, if Magistrate Aaron Bugeja comes to the conclusion that no evidence of crime was discovered, it would still not be enough to appease public opinion. On the contrary, such a conclusion will strengthen the public opinion that documents were removed prior to the magisterial inquiry.
I don’t agree with those who are saying that the Prime Minister should resign because of this investigation. But as the magisterial inquiry is directly related to his work, the least I was expecting was that the Prime Minister auto-suspend himself from office. When common mortals, who work with the civil service, end up under police investigation for alleged wrongdoings, they are suspended from work. The Prime Minister is different to us mortals.
The fact that the Prime Minister ordered an inquiry has contradicted what the Commissioner of Police had stated before, that he needed proof, to start an investigation. After the Prime Minister ordered an inquiry, police officers from the Economic Crime Section were seen entering Pilatus Bank, even if no tangible proof has yet been presented, but there is only collateral evidence and a reference to a document that still needs authentication.