The Malta Independent on Sunday
‘PM’s special envoy’s’ Libya trip seen as attempt to influence visa scam witnesses
● Gafà’s behaviour a violation of Libyan national security, sovereignty and diplomatic protocol – Libyan Foreign Ministry
Just a matter of days after a Maltese magistrate decided he would hear a number of Libyan witnesses in court proceedings levelled against this newspaper by Neville Gafà over the Libyan medical visa scam, Gafà was in Libya speaking to the very same witnesses.
The move – which this newspaper is informed by one the witnesses that Gafà offered a substantial amount of money for them to clam up – could very well be seen as an attempted perversion of the course of justice, the influencing of witnesses and tampering with evidence.
Photographs supplied to The Malta Independent on Sunday show Gafà in
the company of two of the witnesses that this newspaper intends calling to testify against him in libel cases over the medical visa scam.
Just four days before that, on Thursday, 15 October, Magistrate Francesco Depasquale agreed to hear testimony from five witnesses in libel proceedings instituted by Gafà against this newspaper over the Libyan medical visas racket.
By the following Monday, 19 October, Gafà was reportedly meeting with witnesses in Tripoli and reportedly offering substantial amounts of money for them to withdraw their agreement to testify against him.
By the next day, Gafà was having meetings with the Libyan Foreign and Interior Ministers, which they say were meant to have been official meetings but which Gafà has tried to pass off as meetings between friends. This newspaper is informed these latter meetings were held after the witnesses gave Gafà’s offer a lessthan-warm reception.
In the meantime, the Libyan Foreign Affairs Ministry and Interior Ministry have taken no small exception to Gafà’s alleged impersonation as a special envoy of the Maltese Prime Minister.
Gafà met with the Libyan Interior Minister Commissioner Fathi Pasha and Foreign Minister Mohamed Taher Siala.
But after those meetings, both ministers, of the UN-recognised National Accord Government, must have felt more than a little hard done by after Gafà’s apparently passed himself off as an envoy of the Maltese Prime Minister and held what they thought were official talks, claims the Maltese Prime Minister’s Office has denied.
A statement issued by the Libyan Foreign Ministry in the wake of the Gafà visit, seen by this newspaper, went so far as to have suggested that Gafà’s behaviour constituted a violation of Libya’s national security and sovereignty, as well as a violation of diplomatic protocol.
The statement said: “With regard to what was published in the media about the reception of Maltese citizen Neville Gafà, where it is stated that he is representing the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, according to the representative of the Maltese Prime Minister himself, who was received last Tuesday and who held various official meetings with a number of officials and ministers of the National Accord Government.
“The Information Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to explain that usually these visits should happen according to diplomatic protocol procedures, through arrangements with the protocol management office and the rest of the competent authorities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“These procedures in this case did not happen.
“The Information Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs notifies that receiving ambassadors, political advisors, international government staff or non-government personnel by ministers, those responsible for sectors of the public administration and public departments and mayors of provinces without arrangement or consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shall be considered a violation of diplomatic protocol, and such behaviour constitutes a violation of the sovereignty and national security of the Libyan State.
“The Libyan Foreign Ministry stresses to the National Reconciliation Government the need to abide by the rules of conventional diplomatic protocol.”
It is to be noted that the Foreign Ministry has stressed that the talks were ‘official’ and not the innocuous banter amongst friends as Gafà has tried to pass the meetings off as.
The Libyan Interior Ministry, with whose Minister Gafà also had supposed official talks, took a similar stance in the wake of Gafà’s visit and meeting, issuing a statement stipulating the steps to now be followed on such visits:
“To ensure the national security and to protect the homeland and to prevent security breaches, the Ministry of the Interior of the National Accord Government announces to all official and civil authorities that may wish to invite or host a foreigner to the Libyan State in whatever capacity will follow the following steps:
“1. There must be prior arrangement with the protocol administration of the Foreign Ministry before and during the invitation process. The granting of entry visas via all entrances to the Libyan terri- tory is under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior of the National Accord Government.
“2. In this regard, arrangement/agreement shall also be with the International Relations Administration of the Ministry of the Interior.”
Last week, the Libyan Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement to the effect that Gafà had been granted a visa to travel to Libya for the purpose of visiting the Maltese Embassy in Tripoli. At the moment, the Maltese Embassy has no Ambassador but Charles Saliba, who was appointed last July, will soon be taking up residency. The embassy is believed to be unoccupied at the moment.
When contacted last week, Maltese Foreign Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said that Gafà is not employed by his Ministry and that the Ministry had asked Gafà for an explanation.
Abela said: “Gafà told the Minister that he was in Libya on a personal trip, in his personal time, had taken time off work and had paid for the trip himself. He was not representing the government at any point.” When asked in what capacity was Gafà the government’s special envoy, Abela replied: “At no point did Gafà make any claim he was representing the government or the Prime Minister. There are no official documents or communications between the Maltese Government and the Libyan authorities about this visit.”
That, however, was not the case, according to the Libyan authorities. Gafà himself explained: “My visit in Libya was personal and I was never appointed a special envoy to the Maltese Government.” Asked if there was any note verbal exchanged between the two countries for this visit to take place, Gafà replied in the negative and said he had been visiting Libya in a personal ca- pacity.
“The meetings I had during this stay were all held unofficially,” he said. Asked who had accompanied him during this ‘personal trip’, he said that Maltese Ambassador to Libya Charles Saliba was never with him because he had not visited Libya in an official capacity. He did not, however, reply to the question of who else was with him on the trip.
Gafà was accompanied by Libyan businessman Abdulrouf Rahimat, who has a company in Malta called ‘Al Hilal Al Dahbe General Trading Ltd’, an offshore company listed in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Paradise Papers.
From photographs of him on social media, Gafà appears close to the government and the Office of the Prime Minister, with photographs of him posing with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, his Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and several Ministers.
In 2016, this newspaper published articles to the effect that Gafà, who at the time was an official with the Health Ministry, had been accused by a Libyan whistleblower of having masterminded a medical visa racket. He had been investigated for allegedly charging Libyans hefty fees to secure their medical visas, treatment and accommodation, which are supposed to be free of charge, according to an agreement between Malta and Libya.
Gafà was removed from his position with the Health Ministry and transferred to the Foundation for Medical Services, pending an investigation into the allegations. When the police found no evidence of wrongdoing, he was transferred to the Office of the Prime Minister to work in its Customer Care unit. At present he is Projects Director at the Health Ministry.
Last June, the transcripts of a number of conversations alleging Gafà had been involved in the illegal sale of Schengen visas at the Maltese Embassy in Tripoli and the issue of humanitarian medical visas were submitted in court. Once again, in this case Gafà denied all claims.
Alleanza Bidla leader Ivan Grech Mintoff had made several related revelations on his talk show Exodus on Friday, which can be viewed on YouTube.
Commenting to this newspaper yesterday, Grech Mintoff said: “In any European Union country, if a government official goes to a foreign government and impersonates a special envoy of the Prime Minister and is found to have lied, he would have been fired on the spot. If a foreign minister says that another government’s employee has, through his actions, violated another state’s national security and sovereignty he would be immediately sacked and investigated.
“If Joseph Muscat does not act on this story, he loses any shred of credibility that he has.”