The police officer who heads Malta’s economic crimes unit held a suspicious after-hours meeting at the FIAU offices on the eve of a crucial report into former Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi being submitted to a magisterial inquiry, Jonathan Ferris has claimed.

Ferris believes the meeting resulted in discrepancies between the original report and the one that was eventually passed on to the inquiry.

He told the public inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that he saw Ian Abdilla holding a meeting with FIAU Deputy Director Alfred Zammit, who was acting FIAU head at the time,  on CCTV.

The report, 130 pages long, concerns the transfer of money from a company connected to Armada Floating Gas Services Malta, owners of the LNG tanker berthed in Marsaxlokk, to Yorgen Fenech’s 17 Black, which would in turn transfer over money to Mizzi and Keith Schembri.

The file also included Mizzi’s other financial structures and also named Nexia BT’s Karl Cini and Brian Tonna.

The next day, Ferris was called in by Magistrate Aaron Bugeja to testify on the report and confirm its veracity in court. As he was leaving with the full report in hand, Kenneth Farrugia (who would later be appointed FIAU director) stopped him and insisted he just take the final four pages.

“How do you know what the magistrate is going to ask?” Ferris says he asked.

To his surprise, Ferris then found Abdilla also in front of the magistrate. Bugeja already had a copy of the report and Ferris was just asked to confirm it.

However, he said there were discrepancies between the two.