Delia Slams Justice Minister For Claiming To Know Nothing About Fresh Pilatus Bank Inquiry
Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia slammed Justice Minister Owen Bonnici for claiming to know nothing about a new magisterial inquiry into Pilatus Bank.
The new inquiry was revealed by Lovin Malta earlier this week, with Delia pointing out that the government failed to deny or respond to the news. Delia turned his guns on Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, who when questioned by this newsroom about the inquiry, he claimed that as Justice Minister he was not aware of what pending inquiries there may be.
“Owen Bonnici said that he cannot be aware of these inquiries. Remember a few months ago when he said there are no inquiries against his friends? Where it suits him he knows, and where it suits him he doesn’t know,” Delia argued.
“This government is heading towards another situation where our reputation is at stake. Issues related to those who had accounts at Pilatus Bank could now be wide open again.”
Pilatus Bank is the infamous bank at the centre of now disproved allegations that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s wife held a secret Panama company called Egrant. It was claimed that money received into the Egrant company came via a Pilatus bank account.
A magisterial inquiry found no supporting evidence for this claim. Since then, the bank’s license has been revoked at a European level after the bank’s chairman, Ali Sadr, was arraigned in the USA for circumventing sanctions on Iran.
Back in November, the government fielded questions after it was made known that an inquiry had been launched into the secret company 17 Black. The Dubai company was shown, through leaked e-mails, to be listed as the ‘Main Client’ and ‘Possible Payer/Sender’ of Tillgate and Hearnville, the Panama companies owned by former Energy Minister, now Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.
Further investigations by The Times of Malta and Reuters revealed 17 Black belongs to Yorgen Fenech, CEO of Tumas Group and director of Electrogas, the firm which operates Malta’s new gas-fired power station.
The power station was a key electoral pledge in Labour’s campaign to take government in 2013 and was under Konrad Mizzi’s remit back when he was Energy Minister.
During the 2017 election campaign, the Prime Minister said that if his chief of staff was placed under criminal investigation he would be made to resign. When fielding questions about why Schembri was not made to resign after the magisterial inquiry became known, both Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Owen Bonnici insisted it was 17 Black that was investigation and not Keith Schembri.
Homing in on this point, Delia hit out at the Justice Minister for claiming to have information where it suited him, and failing to divulge information when it also suited him.
On Sunday, Delia explained that this was a new inquiry “which nobody knew about”. He also said that the Ta’ Xbiex bank held accounts and money of politicians and people close to politicians.
The new magisterial inquiry is being led by Ian Farrugia.