Pilatus Bank Chairman Arrest Sparks Fresh Street Protest For Police Commissioner’s Resignation
Activists will gather in front of the police headquarters in Floriana at 7pm tonight to demand the resignation of police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar in the wake of last night’s arrest by the United States of the chairman of Pilatus Bank.
Protest organisers Il-Kenniesa are arguing that the arrest of Ali Sadr Hasheminjead is in stark contrast to the Maltese police force’s failure to investigate Pilatus Bank for money laundering as had been reported by late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“Lawrence Cutajar, as a Police Commissioner you have allowed corruption in this country,” Il-Kenniesa said. “You have failed in conducting investigations on Pilatus Bank and its clients, you have failed in protecting the journalist who exposed it, and you continue to fail in questioning the real suspects in Daphne’s assassination.”
Pilatus Bank chairman Ali Sadr Hasheminejad
Ali Sadr was arrested last night on charges that he evaded US sanctions on Iran by funnelling over $115 million from Venezuela through US banks as part of a multimillion deal to build 7,000 housing units in the South American country. US prosecutors say Sadr belonged to a committee overseeing the project’s execution and that he took steps to evade US economic sanctions by concealing the role of Iran and Iranian parties in payment sent through the US banking system. He now faces six counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, charges that can land up to 125 years in prison.
Caruana Galizia sons: ‘Our mother held Ali Sadr to account by herself’
The sons of assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia also blamed the Maltese authorities for their failure to take action against Ali Sadr, arguing that their mother had ended up holding him to account by herself.
“Hashemi Nejad threatened our mother relentlessly, claiming she caused his Malta-based bank, Pilatus Bank, reputational damage,” Matthew, Andrew and Paul Caruana Galizia said in a joint statement. “In May last year, Hashemi Nejad brought a $40m lawsuit against our mother in the US without ever notifying her about it. He withdrew the case on 17 October 2017, the day after she was murdered. We found out about this only in January this year. On the day of her assassination, his lawyers sent letters, which we have seen, to Maltese media threatening similar multi-million dollar lawsuits for reporting on our mother’s investigations.
“The US authorities have now ended the impunity with which Hashemi Nejad operated. Their action vindicates our mother’s work, but it has come at a terrible cost. One of our mother’s sources, a woman who worked at Pilatus Bank, now sits in an Athens prison cell, and our mother is dead.
While the Maltese police were pursuing this source with a European arrest warrant obtained on false charges of misappropriation of a few hundred euros, her former employer was facing charges for laundering hundreds of millions. As if a more damning indictment of the institutional failure in Malta were needed.
Until there is an independent inquiry into Maltese institutional failure, Malta will remain a haven for people like Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad.
Hashemi Nejad may finally face justice for some of what he’s done, which gets us closer than we have ever been to broad justice for our mother’s work. We wish our mother was alive to see it happen.
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