Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1053035
Newspaper post YOUR FIRST READ AND CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT SUNDAY • 18 NOVEMBER 2018 • ISSUE 993 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY SUNDAY • 18 NOVEMBER 2018 • ISSUE 993 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY maltatoday SUNDAY • 18 NOVEMBER 2018 • ISSUE 993 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY today today • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY today • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €689 an hour for MFSA's advisors prompts bank's ire, as clients protest today ARTIST GABRIEL BUTTIGIEG His new exhibition, 'Saudade' €1.95 SATABANK MAT THEW VELLA AIDES to Opposition leader Adrian Delia have expressed concern about the PN's deepen- ing factionalism, after an offer to law yer Ber- nard Grech (pictured) to run for MEP in 2019 did not come back with an answer. Grech, a family law- yer who had publicly backed the anti-divorce campaign in 2011, was said to have refused to commit after Delia of- fered to have him run in the upcoming Euro- pean elections. "He has refused to commit to the offer so far," PN aides who spoke to MaltaToday said. PAGE 4 MATTHEW VELLA SATABANK has protested exorbitant rates it is be- ing charged by the "com- petent persons" appointed to take control of its bank, in a formal protest lodged with the Malta Financial Services Tribunal. Satabank, which was or- dered by the financial reg- ulator to cease business activity and affect only limited cash withdraw- als to its depositors, said it was paying members of the international team up to €689 an hour. The MFSA appointed a team from Ernst & Young to monitor the bank in the proper conduct of its busi- ness on 15 October, but five days later it told Sata- bank to cease from taking new deposits or affecting withdrawals, freezing the bank's operations. PAGE 3 mt survey WHO WANTS THE GOZO TUNNEL? ... or the motorsports track? And do the Maltese even know what the 'Blockchain Island' is all about? PAGES 10-11 SUNDAY • malta SUNDAY • SO MANY ROADS After 17 Black James Debono presents the scenarios PAGE 9 2 INSIDE Delia aides get anxious over 'rising star' DAVID HUDSON FORMER foreign minister George Vella has expressed indignation at a report in MaltaToday that revealed a French secret agent cell could have been operating from a Balzan residence. Vella, minister at the time of the Metro- liner tragedy in 2016, said he was una- ware that a nine-man operation tied to the French DGSE secret service had set up a 'base' in a Balzan house on Triq il- Kannizzata. "If we knew about the operation, we wouldn't have allowed it," Vella said, con- ceding that the issue would have been be- yond his remit. "My impression was that this Metroliner was following trails of terrorism in Libya," he said. But the nine men tied to the Malta cell were members of the DGSE, five of whom were killed in the crash on October 24, 2016. The case was shrouded in mystery, with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat declaring then that the deceased were French Cus- toms employees carrying out surveillance on contraband and trafficking in Libya. The French Customs denied this, while the French newspaper Le Monde con- firmed that the deceased were all mem- bers of the DGSE, the French secret ser- vice. But last week MaltaToday revealed that the men were tracking the movements of armaments in the hands of Libyan rebels, and that two black boxes went missing af- ter French investigators came to Malta to review the incident, bringing the ongoing magisterial inquiry in Malta to a slow- down. Still last week, Muscat gave MaltaToday a casual response on the new revelations and reaffirmed his commitment to his 2016 statements – he claimed that "it's obvious that when there's a surveillance mission, there'd be overlapping with is- sues of security." 'We would not have allowed French spies' George Vella (left) with French counterpart Jean- Marc Ayrault in 2016 4