Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1101649
NEWS 5 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 APRIL 2019 MATTHEW VELLA THE Canadian-Egyptian billionaire Ernest Anderson – who took the name Edward Ba- nayoti in 2015 – is using Malta to secure a foothold in Europe's defence market. He recently registered his armaments bro- kerage firm Defence United International on the list of lobbies in Brussels on March 20, and more recently as a company in Malta based in Valletta. Briefly the son-in-law of Jordan's King Ab- dallah II, the arms exports consultant had in 2016 presented an offer for a 49.9 per cent stake in Air Malta through his UK company Banayoti Holdings, which in 2016 had a reg- istered capital of €1.8 billion. Defence Unlim- ited International are military asset brokers and members of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), the national voice of the Canadian defence, and security industries. Defence Unlimited International can deliver ships, rifles, grenade launchers, marine and land radar systems, tanks and other armoured vehicles, helicopters and planes and UAVs to both security contractors and official armed forces. Registered among suppliers to NATO, Ba- nayoti has acted since 2015 as Canadian rep- resentative of the Swiss firm Silent Circle that specialises in encrypting data on mobile phones and makes Blackphone 2. Banayoti also operates on behalf of South Korea's Wing Ship Technology (WST) which is headed by seaplane manufacturer Chang-Gu Kang, and American firm MITgel which manufactures bullet-proof vests. As Ernest Anderson, he was the object of a financial investigation in Canada in 2009 on suspicion of being impli- cated in dealing in fake mortgages through his defunct company Golden Gate Funds. The af- fair resulted in a settlement with the prosecu- tor's office. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Edward Banayoti had submitted an offer for the 49% stake in Air Malta back in 2016 Defence consultant Banayoti sets up EU base in Malta Watchdog looks into magistrate's 'inappropriate' recommendations on bird trapping YANNICK PACE THE Commission for the Ad- ministration of Justice is to in- vestigate comments made by Magistrate Joe Mifsud by way of "recommendations" on bird trapping he made in a court de- cree on illegal trapping. The CAJ's committee for judges and magistrates has started taking statements for its investigation, after BirdLife Malta filed its protest on the court decree back in December 2018. The CAJ is tasked with su- pervising the workings of the courts and exercising discipline on judges and magistrates, among other functions. Court sources who spoke with MaltaToday said the CAJ's subcommittee had scheduled a first meeting to take place in May. Mifsud's decree was delivered ahead of a sentence in which a man accused of illegal trapping was cleared of all charges. In it Mifsud, who is tasked with cases in the Gozo courts, in- cluded a number of recommen- dations seemingly addressed to the Maltese authorities, related to the size of nets used to trap songbirds – a technical detail that seemed far removed from the case in hand. Mifsud argued that the re- cently introduced wider sizes for trapping nets – which have bigger holes to allow certain birds to escape entrapment – constituted a "form of abuse" since birds were injured trying to remove themselves from it. The comment was connect- ed to actions taken earlier in the year after the European Court of Justice ruled against Malta for failing to fulfil the conditions necessary to dero- gate from the EU's ban on the trapping of finches. The legal changes were in October 2018 as part of an agreement with the European Commission for a new derogation from the Birds Directive. As a result of the agreement, the minimum net mesh size was increased from 30mm to 45mm. But in his decree, which was officially communicated to the Ornis Committee, the Wild Birds Regulation Unit and the parliamentary secretary in charge of hunting, Mifsud argued that once the law al- lows for live birds to be caught, it must also ensure they are caught with the least damage possible. "One understands that the legislator's intention was to minimise abuse by making it difficult to catch small birds but if abuse is to be cut down, sur- veillance has to be increased," he said. The magistrate's observations were, however, considered "to- tally inappropriate" by BirdLife CEO Mark Sultana, who said at the time that Mifsud had "opt- ed to go beyond the sentencing of the case and come up with an unfounded opinion in relation to the size of the nets". The NGO had pointed out that Mifsud's recommenda- tions echoed arguments against the new regulations made by the hunting lobby. ypace@mediatoday.com.mt Magistrate Joe Mifsud PHOTO JAMES BIANCHI