Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1008890
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 JULY 2018 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Busuttil, who in 2017 had told the press there was "no reason" why Magistrate Aaron Bugeja should not have enough evi- dence to place Joseph Muscat under criminal investigation, said yesterday that prosecuting Portelli would be a "travesty of justice". With the PN currently in the throes of a polite rebellion by MPs loyal to the ex-PN leader, Busuttil's message was a sub- tle reminder that even Delia is hamstrung by Portelli's own part in the Egrant affair. Busuttil joined a call by Na- tionalist MP Karol Aquilina call- ing for solidarity with Portelli, warning that any criminal ac- tion against the journalist would be "a clear case of a frame-up". With the PN pre-empting pos- sible criminal charges against protagonists in the Egrant saga who gave false witness, Busuttil said that any such prosecution against Portelli would be akin to something "straight out of a dic- tatorship". "If we want to live in a democ- racy, we cannot let these things pass," Busuttil said. Portelli had, during the Egrant inquiry, submitted two declara- tions of trust for the Panama- nian company to Magistrate Aaron Bugeja. The documents, however, turned out to be fraud- ulent, containing falsified signa- tures. On Friday, Karol Aquilina said Portelli had been doing his job as a journalist in the Egrant matter, and had done so despite the risk to himself and his fam- ily. He also encouraged others to publicly offer their support to Portelli. Portelli is, however, being ac- cused by Labour politicians of having taken a direct part in the media strategy that advanced Egrant as an unimpeachable story. On 1 June, two days before the general election, Portelli con- firmed on Xtra he had seen the documents with his own eyes. "I am the only one amongst you who has also seen the docu- ments that the whistleblower had shown the magistrate," Portelli told the other journal- ists on the panel. "Take it as a scoop if you want, but I couldn't publish these documents be- cause the Russian embassy had warned the whistleblower that it wouldn't help her if she ig- nored the magistrate's advice." Portelli is now defending his role in the Egrant saga, argu- ing that he never gave cre- dence to the crucial document that fell into his possession. "I never published this docu- ment or even said in public that I believed it to true. When I received this document, I did what any responsible person in the world would have done and handed it over to the inquiring magistrate. I actually handed in this document after the gen- eral election, so Labour's spin about this being a political move makes no sense at all." He had previously told Lovin- Malta that his source was nei- ther the sacked Pilatus Bank employee Maria Efimova, nor Daphne Caruana Galizia or for- mer police officer and Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit offi- cial Jonathan Ferris. mcosta@mediatoday.com.mt EGRANT More coverage on pages 12-17 73 4 80 6 2 69 29 50 28-07-2018 Draw No: 734 MPs pre- empt possible charges against Portelli Pierre Portelli: Delia's man has his own problems to face CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 "You're taking me back two years… I don't remember. Of course, I did investigate Dalli. I appeared before Bugeja but I don't remember if it was about Egrant or any other inquiry," the former FIAU investigator said. MaltaToday is, however, re- liably informed that through- out the course of the Egrant magisterial inquiry, Dalli was asked whether he had indeed told Ferris during police ques- tioning that the Panamanian company Egrant was intended for Labour's electoral funds. Dalli had been investigat- ed by Ferris over allegations that his companies had been involved in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded American in- vestors. His two daughters have since been charged with money laundering, fraud and misappropriation. The case itself had been covered in as- tounding detail by Daphne Caruana Galizia months after Dalli's secret Bahamas trip was splashed on the New York Times. The fascinating aspect of the allegation that Egrant was a company belonging to the Labour Party for its electoral funds is how it resonates with statements first made by Si- mon Busuttil back in Septem- ber 2016. Answering questions during an interview at an Independ- ence rally on 17 September, Busuttil mooted the sugges- tion that Egrant stood for 'election grant', connected to Labour's own financing ef- forts. "We don't have a company called Egrant in Panama," Bu- suttil told interviewer Peppi Azzopardi on being asked about party financing. "Be- cause what is Egrant after all?... 'E' – what does 'e' rep- resent? To me it seems that it stands for 'election'. I think this Panama company Egrant is for electoral donations." Ferris has said that he passed on the Dalli investigation to his superior in November 2015, but the charges were slow to be issued. An illustration of this impatience came in one of Daphne Caruana Galizia's blogposts on 2 March 2017, where she complained that the fraud charges against the Dalli sisters had not yet been filed – a matter she insisted had informed Ferris's resignation from the police force. The two Dalli sisters were finally charged on 8 January, 2018. Still, earlier in 2016, soon af- ter the Panama Papers broke, the suggestion that Joseph Muscat's chief of staff Keith Schembri – owner of Panama- nian company Tillgate – had himself financed the Labour Party's campaign was already making the political rounds. Schembri had then put paid to the insinuation that a €1.5 million loan registered in his Kasco group accounts in 2012, had been intended for La- bour's electoral campaign. In a piece published by The Times in May 2016, Schembri said the loan was a credit line to a major client: Progress Press, the publisher and printer of The Times. "Essentially Kasco served as a financing vehicle to assist Progress Press and Al- lied Newspapers to meet their payment terms. To date Kasco still has a substantial amount of account receivables that are pending from Allied Group," Schembri had said. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt 'Election-grant' rumour given short shrift "You're taking me back two years… I don't remember. Of course, I did investigate Dalli. I appeared before Bugeja but I don't remember if it was about Egrant or any other inquiry," Jonathan Ferris said Delia files case against AG for full inquiry PN leader Adrian Delia will be taking the Attorney General to court after the latter's refusal to pass on a full copy of Magistrate Aaron Bugeja's Egrant in- quiry report. On Thursday Delia filed a judicial protest against AG Peter Grech, demand- ing the full inquiry within 24 hours. "With his decision to not hand over a full copy of the inquiry report the Attorney General is creating a politi- cal imbalance between the government and the Oppo- sition... Joseph Muscat has a full copy of the report, and every day which passes is increasing [this] imbal- ance," the PN said. The PN said the AG's de- cision was unjustified and "goes against the public interest and of transpar- ency." "This [state of affairs per- sists] despite the fact that the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader declared that the inquiry should be published in full," the PN said.