Casa testifies on FIAU report
Nationalist MEP David Casa yesterday testified before Inquiring Magistrate Aaron Bugeja, after his request to present the court with a leaked FIAU report was accepted.
Casa claims that the report, compiled by the Financial Investigation and Analysis Unit, contains damning evidence against Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi.
The MEP arrived at court punctually at 9am, spending over an hour giving evidence before the inquiring magistrate. Magistrate Bugeja is investigating corruption allegations, made by slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who alleged that a substantial amount of money was transferred via Pilatus Bank in Ta’ Xbiex from a daughter of Ilham Aliyev, the Azerbaijani dictator, to a Panama-registered account, which she alleged belongs to the prime minister’s wife, Michelle Muscat.
The magistrate was also given evidence on alleged wrongdoing by Konrad Mizzi.
Any allegations to do with Pilatus Bank fall under the same inquiry.
“I have no faith in the police or the commissioner of police,” Casa told reporters outside the court building. “I worry when I see the weakening of the democratic institutions. I came to fulfil my duty in the name of the Maltese people and came to the Court of Magistrates and had a meeting with the magistrate.”
Casa said he could not divulge what was discussed as the court had bound him to secrecy. “I have trust in the justice system
and the magistrate and the work he is doing and I respect his choice that I should not discuss what was said.”
Casa bristled when a reporter for the Labour Party-owned television station One suggested that he was “working against Malta” in Brussels. “I am working against a government that is making Malta the object of ridicule abroad. Saying I am working against Malta is an insult. You don’t know what I’m doing. You are defending a bank... all these journalists here, Pilatus Bank is threatening to sue them for $40 million if they speak out.”
The leaked FIAU report which Casa refers to allegedly describes kickbacks received by Konrad Mizzi and OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri from a company connected to Armada Floating Gas Services Malta, owners of the LNG tanker berthed in Marsaxlokk.
The money was allegedly transferred through a Dubai-based company called 17 Black.
Part of the report, which the FIAU says was never finalised, was published by The Malta Independent last year, but Casa says that the full report has been leaked to him.
When initially presenting the report to the court, he had said that it contained “details of bank transfers, dates, figures, names and details about the fabrication of documents that allowed Mizzi to do what he did.” Pilatus Bank, he continued, had once again been named.
The bank denies any and all wrongdoing, and has threatened every independent media house in Malta, including this one, with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) in jurisdictions such as the UK and the US.
Pilatus Bank went so far as to file a defamation suit against the murdered journalist in the US state of Arizona, claiming that her writings caused loss of future clients and reputational damage to the tune of €40 million. The suit was withdrawn after Caruana Galizia’s was murdered.
When Casa presented the report to the inquiring magistrate, Konrad Mizzi issued a statement claiming that the former was trying to intimidate him and that while he [Mizzi] had brought investment and positive change to the island, Casa continued to bring harm and damage the island’s reputation.