Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1078260
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 FEBRUARY 2019 NEWS Franco Debono CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 "The decision by the MFSA to put the bank under control- lership was described as 'po- litical', and that it was rushed – the regulator felt it had to act fast to counter the public im- pression that it had licensed a problematic bank," the source said – a view that has been cor- roborated by MFSA sources who also spoke to MaltaToday. Ministers were told that the MFSA's response to the ar- rest of Hasheminejad (pic- tured) had been informed by the bank being at the centre of the Egrant allegations – al- legations that were yet to be proven unfounded in a magis- terial inquiry published later in 2018 – and not to a breach of Maltese financial rules. "They have been told that the Pilatus's case in the finan- cial services tribunal is no easy claim to repel," the source told MaltaToday. Pilatus was at the heart of ac- cusations by the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that it had processed a $1 million transaction from the Azerbai- jani ruling dynasty to Joseph Muscat's spouse: an allegation that turned out to be untrue. Since the publication of the Egrant inquiry con- clusions, the bank has been on the offensive against its detractors. It has protested the appointment of Amer- ican banking veteran Lawrence Connell as controller, which the bank says will cost it "a potential USD600,000 (€523,000) per an- num" in remuneration fees alone, apart from the remuneration of additional staff and advisors engaged by Connell. The bank claims it is incur- ring expenses of $100,000 (€87,000) a month. Hasheminejad – a natural- ised US national – was arrest- ed in February 2018 and was charged in a New York district court of having evaded US sanctions against Iran, apart from committing bank fraud, by funnelling over $115 million in payments for a Venezuelan housing complex through the US financial system for the benefit of his Iranian family's companies. To justify its de- cision to put the bank under con- trollership, the MFSA said the ar- rest raised reasona- ble doubt about the integrity and suit- ability of Hashem- inejad to fulfil his duties. H a s h e m i n e j a d was granted bail in the United States after lawyers presented an impressive $34 million bail package that included restrict- ed travel and electronic moni- toring. Pilatus Holding has accused its former employee Maria Efimova – who was sacked after three months and later charged by Maltese police of misappropriating funds from the bank – of being a 'Russian informant' that fed misrepre- sentations of the bank to polit- ically-motivated collaborators. Efimova was first held up as Daphne Caruana Galizia's pri- mary source on the Egrant al- legation, claiming Prime Min- ister Joseph Muscat's wife was the owner of a secret Panama- nian company and that owner- ship documents had been kept inside Pilatus Bank. But Efimova later denied be- ing Caruana Galizia's main source, and said she only con- firmed allegations that the journalist was already working on. The Egrant inquiry's conclu- sions said Efimova gave contra- dictory accounts that have dis- credited her status as a lauded whistleblower after Magistrate Aaron Bugeja said the Egrant allegation was based on fabri- cated documents. "The Egrant fiasco confirms the negligence and gullibility of MFSA, that blindly accepted the misrepresentations fed to it by the 'Russian informant' Maria Efimova, supported and used by her politically moti- vated collaborators," Pilatus Holding said in a statement issued after the publication of the Egrant inquiry, accusing the MFSA of knowing that the Egrant allegations were "mere- ly a fabrication". "MFSA has acted as judge and jury and interviewed mul- tiple times the Bank's top of- ficials, asking pointed and in- criminating questions about Egrant Inc and treating them like convicted criminals." Pilatus could win MFSA damages MAT TH E W VELLA & MA SSI MO COSTA FRANCO Debono, Law Commissioner and former Nationalist MP whose vote brought down Lawrence Gonzi's gov- ernment months before an election was due, stood in one of the corridors at the law courts this week, waiting for Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. His hands wrapped tightly across, Debono's clear air of umbrage was evi- dent to lawyers passing by. "He seemed to be waiting angrily for someone… and he could have been waiting for Muscat," two lawyers who spoke to MaltaToday said. Muscat and his entourage entered the law courts, where the Prime Minister testified in a libel case he filed against Daphne Caruana Galizia on the Egrant allega- tions. But he was spared the confronta- tion. Instead, Debono – who in 2017 toyed with a Labour candidature – made headlines with an inflammatory blog- post accusing Muscat of being "the most corrupt politician in Maltese history", and that – circumstantially – he was clearly the owner of the secret Panamanian company Egrant. The eruption brought out the inter- net's usual trolls: Labour supporters posted Facebook statuses in which Debono himself dubbed Egrant "a lie". So what had changed to bring the Gonzi-era Debono out guns blazing? Yesterday, in full candour Debono delivered a storm of detail surrounding a cast of characters connected to Mus- cat, not least his faithful lawyer Pawlu Lia – who is prosecuting the Egrant libel suit, but also sits as the govern- ment's representative on the judicial watchdog, the Commissioner for the Administration of Justice. This same commission is hearing Debono's appeal against a 2011 deci- sion by the Chamber of Advocates that found him guilty of contempt with a €700 fine, over a telephonic alterca- tion with a magistrate's assistant (his request for a sitting's deferment while he was ill had been turned down). Since then, the appeal has proceeded at an unhurried pace. In 2017, Debono demanded the recusal of the Commis- sion's president, the President of the Republic Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca. The reason: he was representing par- ties in a civil claim against the Presi- dent in the Papaqli charity supercar incident. The request was refused. But just two months ago, Debono also requested the recusal of lawyer Pawlu Lia, a man who yesterday he publicly accused as someone "cruel". "I remember some three years ago having advised Lia about his son, then working as a legal aid, over something that was not allowed… I won't go into it, but after that time, his son was re- moved from the legal aid list," Debono yesterday explained with meticulous detail. "Now I've never met such a cruel per- son," he said emphatically in a long telephone conversation. "Lia once told me his golden rule – that when he is aggrieved by someone, he makes sure to pay them back." Lia – Debono suggested – wants to pay him back too; while also doing Muscat's bidding, specifically since Debono's previous role as head of a Constitutional reform convention has been unceremoniously entrusted to the outgoing President of the Republic. "My colleague Marion Camilleri had to recently testify in the appeal but was taken ill on the day she had to appear, and Lia alone demanded a sick note: written under oath! Truly the worst kind of cruelty that characterised La- bour in the 1980s…" But Debono went a step further yes- terday, pointing at Muscat's decision to have Coleiro Preca steer the conven- tion on Constitutional reform which he had been entrusted with in 2013, before the Opposition boycotted the convention and ground it to a halt. "Since I refused to contest the elec- tion with Labour in 2017, Muscat has changed," Debono said. "Joseph has given this role to Coleiro Preca. He didn't even call me to tell me… I'm seeing their behaviour inside the Commission for the Administra- tion of Justice as a manoeuvre intended at making me out to be unfit for this role. I'm no cretin," Debono said, spell- ing out the grave slight. Minutes after yesterday's phone call with MaltaToday, Debono was pub- lishing yet more claims about Pawlu Lia, whom he accuses of doing his ut- most to find him culpable so that Mus- cat can remove Debono from the con- vention headship. But Debono yesterday disavowed Muscat entirely, specifically by raising the spectre of the Egrant ownership, and even resurrecting the notorious 'Form 2C' – this time not the report card of his precocious brilliance – but a distinct memory of his former Aloy- sian classmate Muscat, whom he now insists has a turnip for a brain. "Form 2C is the key to everything," Debono said. "1987-1988… the PN were truly on top, and Joseph Muscat knew it then. He has a secret admira- tion for what the PN did in those days. He is trying to do all the PN did only on a larger scale… but Labour also wants to get rid of certain people. This is the worst of the worst of Labour." Debono, slighted and stirred... Franco Debono says Muscat's cronies want to make him out to be unfit to head the Constitutional convention The Franco awakes