In March 2020, the National Audit Office found that the process to transfer the site formerly occupied by the Institute for Tourism Studies in Pembroke to the DB Group was mired in administrative failures. The NAO reported10 that the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry for Tourism gave conflicting reports with regards to … Continued
For several years after the outbreak of civil war in Libya, Malta-based operators participated in and coordinated fuel smuggling between Libyan militias and warlords, and Italian organised crime. The smuggling operations used Maltese waters, harbour and infrastructural facilities to conduct their operations. In March 2016, the United Nations Panel on Libya, reporting to the Security … Continued
Another 2013/2014 key policy initiative by Joseph Muscat’s government was the scheme to sell Maltese citizenship to largely anonymised customers. The scheme, that was not anticipated in Joseph Muscat’s party electoral manifesto for the 2013 election, was shrouded in secrecy. A number of beneficiaries were exposed by Daphne Caruana Galizia and others for involvement in … Continued
When Daphne Caruana Galizia exposed Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi for setting up Panama companies after they came to office in March 2013, her investigations were flatly denied. When her reporting was independently confirmed by publications made by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the two were kept in office right up to November 2019. … Continued
In the first months after the March 2013 election, the government licensed Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad, an Iranian national with multiple identities and citizenships, to open a European bank in Malta. In spite of protestations by Malta’s authorities that Pilatus Bank was clean as a whistle, investigations by the European Central Bank determined that Pilatus … Continued
Before the March 2013 general elections, the police signalled their interest in John Dalli who had left office in disgrace, dismissed from the European Commission in October 2012 on the basis of evidence collected by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Following further investigation by the Maltese Police, they and the Attorney General considered that there … Continued
Immediately upon his election, Joseph Muscat asked all serving Permanent Secretaries to submit their resignation, even before he appointed the Cabinet of Ministers. This effectively decapitated the public service, preventing it from exercising its function of ensuring institutional memory, administrative continuity and to act as a legal conscience for the political leadership of the administration. … Continued
The Inquiry has heard detailed evidence that shows that the rule of law was being systematically eroded as a result of the consistent failure of the responsible authorities to bring to justice a certain category of criminal. We will not re-examine the evidence or the testimony given to the Inquiry but we will list for … Continued
Without prejudice to the presumption of innocence of the persons charged with perpetrating Daphne’s killing or with being accomplices therein, it appears clear that the alleged assassins acted on the instructions of ‘clients’ or ‘bosses’ who engaged them or ordered them to commit the crime. The boss or bosses too will have felt it would … Continued
Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination by car-bomb was not the first murder or attempted murder in this style in the years leading up to her killing. However, in all the years and after the several car bombings4 that occurred before October 2017, we are not aware of a single arrest by the police in connection with … Continued
