Former magistrate and current Freemason Carol Peralta is representing disgraced former Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi following his arrest in connection to his links with Yorgen Fenech, the main suspect in the Daphne Caruana Galizia investigation.

Mizzi is also being represented by Jean-Paul Sammut, the lawyer with links to heavyweight Charles ‘Caqnu’ Polidano, even at one point serving as the CEO of Polidano’s Montekristo Estate.

However, the former magistrate has been a long-standing mysterious figure in Malta’s judiciary and has now linked up with one of the nation’s most controversial politicians, so who exactly is Carol Peralta?

Peralta, who resigned as a magistrate in 2015, has been a senior freemason at the Leinster Lodge No 387 since the 1990s. The lodge would meet at the Villa Blye in Paola.

He was first revealed to be part of the masonic brotherhood by Alternattiva – the former newspaper of Alternattiva Demokratika. He had appeared on a letter of the masonic brotherhood three days after being appointed a magistrate. He has never denied being a freemason and appeared on a freemason list as of 2015.

Freemasonry has been linked to the Daphne Caruana Galizia case, with the former lawyer of Vince ‘Il-Koħħu’ Muscat, Arthur Azzopardi, also forming part of the lodge.

Peralta was a controversial figure during his time with the judiciary beyond alleged links to a Masonic lodge, notably holding a Christmas party within his courtroom and ordering the arrest of a journalist.

Peralta has survived two impeachment motions.

The first was put forward by then-MP and current judge Wenzu Mintoff in 1990. Peralta had courted controversy for granting ownership rights to a property in Qala overnight. The property was later sold to a fellow magistrate.

Then-Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami led a second attempt in December 1994. However, the Commission for the Administration of Justice rejected his attempt.

Peralta left Malta in 2003 with 283 pending magisterial inquiries. He then served eight years in war crimes tribunals as part of the UN mission in Kosovo. He returned to Maltese courts in 2012 and stepped down in 2015.

More recently, he has been in the news for submitting a planning application for the construction of a three-star hotel on 5,500 square metres of land outside the development zone (ODZ) in Mellieħa.

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