Delia And Cardona Not Questioned By Magistrate Investigating Caruana Galizia Murder
The magistrate investigating Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder has not questioned Economy Minister Chris Cardona or Opposition leader Adrian Delia even though these were the first people called in for questioning by the original duty magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera.
Scerri Herrera abstained from continuing her inquiry after an application was filed by the Caruana Galizia family expressing a lack of confidence in the magistrate who herself had sued the late journalist years ago.
In the meantime, Scerri Herrera had already called Cardona and Delia in for questioning, but the men left without being interviewed due to the family’s court application.
Delia and Cardona were in Caruana Galizia’s line of fire during the months preceding her assassination. She had declared she was working on a big story in their regard.
On August 26th, which happened to be her birthday, Caruana Galizia wrote this, soon before the PN leadership election in which Delia got elected: “Yes, there is more to be revealed because the story is a lot bigger than has been reported already. But the reporting of news stories should not be dictated by political agendas. I am still working on pulling the details together, and quite frankly, the story has so many component parts that it can’t be reported all at once because it is just too much to absorb. It has to be understood in its component parts, separately, in instalments.”
In that same article Caruana Galizia pointed out that when he was aged only 29, Delia already had an offshore bank account in Jersey despite having “no money to speak of”.
“Delia is right when he says he opened that offshore account in Jersey for ‘clients’, but that does not make it a client account. A client account is just a bank account in which lawyers, accountants, notaries and so on deposit money that comes from transactions and which must be passed on to their clients on behalf of their clients. It is just an administrative tool by which professionals and others avoid mixing their own money with money that isn’t theirs and which has to be paid on. It’s done to avoid confusion in accounting and nothing else,” she had written.
“When a lawyer conspires with his clients to open an offshore account in a jurisdiction like Jersey, in his name, so that those clients have somewhere to park their money from illegal sources temporarily before processing it on to other bank accounts held in the name of companies incorporated in the ultra-secretive Marshall Islands – a system called ‘layering’ – that is not a client account. That is the crime of money laundering,” Caruana Galizia said.
Soon after, MaltaToday reported that Delia was a director of Healey Properties Limited, the company that owned 52, Greek Street in London – a property that was raided by London police during an investigation into a prostitution racket.
“Documents seen by MaltaToday include a board resolution showing Healey Properties – registered in the Bahamas – accepting the resignation as directors of both Adrian Delia and Chris Cardona, who is today economy minister and Labour deputy leader for party affairs. The document is dated 2 December 2003 and is signed by Delia only,” the story read.
Both Cardona and Delia both told Lovin Malta they had not been questioned. A source within the investigation told Lovin Malta “a number of other people” were questioned, but “not them”. The source did not explain why.
The original version of this story made reference to a third person who was incorrectly reported as having also been called in for questioning. The third person was outside court that day as Chris Cardona’s driver and was not called in for questioning by magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera as reported earlier. The error is regretted.
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