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Joseph Muscat Described As ‘Young And Savvy’ By Cambridge Analytica, Leaked Email Shows

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The Times of Malta has reported that it accessed the leaked e-mails that show that the data mining firm SCL offered to organise a meeting between Joseph Muscat and Henley & Partners CEO Christian Kalin.

“He is young, very determined and very savvy for international investment”

The e-mails indicate that Mr Kalin responded positively. The e-mails that followed included SCL asking whether polling should be conducted, to which Mr Kalin responded to hold off the polling since it’s “too far away from election time.”

He also indicated that he is not in the business of campaign funding.

The British parliamentary committee’s final report states that they “understand that SCL certainly had meetings in Malta, that Christian Kalin of Henley & Partners was introduced by SCL to Joseph Muscat in 2011, and that Christian Kalin met with both political parties before 2013.” It based this on confidential information shown to the committee. The Times of Malta has reported that they have been shown various e-mails which support the committee’s claims.

In exchange for doing this, Henley & Partners would gain exclusive passport rights for that country, under a citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programme. The Malta Citizenship by Investment Programme was not included in the party’s pre-election manifesto, and has been controversial ever since its introduction in 2013.

Though leaked, the e-mails have not been published

In the final report, the committee states that they base their claims on confidential and unpublished reports. Manuel Delia claimed to have seen these e-mails, but did not publish them either.

The Times of Malta also reported on the e-mails, but have only quoted sections of them in their article.

Ck And Pm

Photo taken from daphnecaruanagalizia.com of Christian Kalin (right) and Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri (centre)

“As I had occasion to tell you when we met, Malta is not St Kitts & Nevis”

In a blog post dated May 12, 2017, the late Daphne Caruana Galizia shared an e-mail that she had sent to Mr Kalin calling him out for “abusively selling Maltese citizenship against the will of the people who hold a Maltese passport by birthright,” and for being involved with “shady people” in Russia and the Middle East.

The Nationalist Party was also approached by SCL, and the party’s then-secretary general Paul Borg Olivier claims to have “kicked out both Christian Kalin and SLC from sneaking further into the PNHQ.” In a Facebook post, he suggests that SLC’s Christian Kalin and the labour party were operating in a “devious manner.”

The government denies that there ever was any contact between SCL and Dr Muscat

The report published on Monday said that SCL held meetings in Malta. Dr Kalin was introduced by SCL to Dr Muscat in 2011. The report cites “confidential information” as confirmation that the Labour Party had dealings with SCL.

In response to these allegations, the government wrote:

“The Committee, at no stage, supported its allegations by any evidence, nor did it afford the Maltese authorities the opportunity to respond. On the contrary, willingly and wilfully, it disregarded representations made by the Maltese authorities in writing; thus, failing to comply with usual procedures of inviting the stakeholder involved to respond to the allegations made.”

Who are SCL?

The final report published by the House of Commons stated that SCL Elections and its associated companies, including Cambridge Analytica, worked on campaigns that were not financed transparently which overstepped certain legal and ethical boundaries.

The company Cambridge Analytica found itself in the midst of international controversy as it was accused of using the personal data of 50 million Facebook users to influence to 2016 US Presidential elections.

The Times of Malta has reported that personal data from more than 6,000 Maltese Facebook users was shared with Cambridge Analytica. This means that more Maltese citizens were targeted than Estonia, Latvia and Luxembourg, countries with higher population numbers.

What do you think of these allegations by the British Parliamentary committee? Let us know in the comments

READ NEXT: Cambridge Analytica DID Meet Joseph Muscat, UK Fake News Committee Insists As It Cites Confidential Information

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