Keith Schembri withdraws defamation suit to avoid being questioned

The prime minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, has announced in court that he will drop a defamation suit against former PN leader Simon Busuttil in order to avoid being questioned about the offshore company 17 Black.

His lawyer, Edward Gatt, told Magistrate Victor Axiak that Schembri, whose offshore Panama company was tied to the mysterious Dubai company, felt “that many of his fundamental and constitutional rights are being prejudiced and, because the witness is collaborating with the judicial authorities in other, connected, proceedings, he is at this stage unconditionally ceding the libel suit.”

Schembri was expected to testify about the secret Dubai company, believed to have been used to channel payments through his own offshore Panama company.

Former Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil had accused Schembri of receiving bribes through 17 Black, which was named in leaked emails as one of two companies that would pay $2 million to Schembri’s and Minister Konrad Mizzi’s Panama companies.

Schembri was reluctant to be cross-examined on the subject of the Dubai-registered company, arguing that the company information was not in the public domain at the time Bustuttil’s allegedly defamatory speech about corruption and the Panama Papers was delivered in March 2016.

During the last sitting, Magistrate Victor Axiak denied Schembri’s request to be exempted from testifying about 17 Black.

Schembri’s lawyer, Pawlu Lia, told the court that his client had been advised not to answer questions about facts under a magisterial inquiry on 17 Black. The court said that, irrespective of what was said in inquiries, the questions would be admissable. “If the questions are incriminating, the witness has a right not to answer them,” said the magistrate.

Schembri twice refused to answer the questions, arguing the point of the ongoing inquiry and that: “I have advice that I am not to speak about the inquiry.” The court warned him he would be sanctioned if he refused to answer. He then proceeded to withdraw the defamation suit.

I’m not scared at all Keith Schembri

Following the court case, OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri said he was not scared at all when asked why he had withdrawn the libel case against former Opposition

leader Simon Busuttil.

Approached by journalists on his way back to his office at the Auberge de Castille, Schembri said that he was not scared at all. He said he would be testifying in the magisterial inquiry.

Schembri issued a statement later in the day, saying that he was answering all questions being put to him as part of ongoing magisterial inquiries. He argued that the libel case had had nothing to do with 17 Black and, therefore, dealt with issues brought up long before allegations surrounding the Dubaibased company had been made public. In the course of the same libel suit, Schembri said, Busuttil had refused to say that he (Schembri) had been involved in illicit behaviour as he had alleged for many years.

During yesterday’s sitting, Magistrate Victor Axiaq said he had offered legal services to the Kasco Group – of which Schembri was a director and is still a shareholder, Schembri said. This same service had been offered to Nexia BT – the Kasco Group’s auditors. Schembri said it was a surprise that Busuttil had no objection to this. Schembri said he and his lawyers had decided to request the magistrate’s recusal anyway – a request that was denied. “The magistrate also denied a request that no questions should be made on matters that could prejudice the magisterial inquiry into the operations of 17 Black,” Schembri said. In view of this, Schembri said that, “against his own wishes,” he had withdrawn the suit as he felt that his fundamental and constitutional rights could be breached if it continued. He said he would continue to answer questions in the magisterial inquiries called for by Busuttil.

In a statement, Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia said Prime Minister Joseph Muscat should immediately dismiss Schembri, “who did his best not to answer any questions in a libel suit he himself had instituted.”

Schembri had chosen not to testify so as not to incriminate himself, Delia said. “After what happened in court today, Schembri should resign or should be removed from his position immediately,” the PN leader said.