Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1195815
MATTHEW VELLA A private investigative firm based in Luxembourg has de- nied press reports that it pre- pared a report suggesting that Daphne Caruana Galizia could have been assassinated in a Rus- sian plot. The firm, Sandstone, was en- gaged by British PR firm Chel- gate, which in turn was engaged by the Maltese government to defend it in a fake news probe by the House of Commons. Excerpts of the research seen by EUobserver posited that Russian President Vladimir Pu- tin and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev had conspired to assassinate Caruana Galizia, us- ing a Chechen killer, the news- paper said. According to the excerpts, the report would have suggested that Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev – whose family and oligarchs had accounts in the now-shuttered Pilatus Bank in Malta – "had incontestable connections with Malta's top officials, including Prime Minister Muskat [sic], and their partners on the is- land", a possible reference to the Electrogas project which in- cludes Azeri state oil company Socar as a shareholder. But the firm has rebutted the "false and damaging" allega- tions, and has taken criminal and civil legal proceedings against EUobserver in Luxem- bourg, where Sandstone and its director Frank Schneider are based. "The report referred to by the EUobserver does exist, but it was not prepared by Sandstone or anyone working for Sand- stone," Schneider said in a state- ment reacting to the report. "Sandstone was not commis- sioned by Chelgate or any other third party to prepare this re- port. Chelgate has never com- missioned Sandstone to prepare any other report of this type. Nor did Chelgate commission this report to be prepared by any other body. Neither the re- port nor the contents of the re- port were provided to Chelgate by Sandstone or any other third party," Schneider said. "Until the publication of the EU Observer article, Chelgate had no knowledge of the exist- ence of the report. It therefore follows that neither the report nor any of the theories, allega- tions or suppositions contained in the report were used by Chel- gate or Sandstone in any brief- ings." Schneider said that Sand- stone had confirmed that the report in question was among the material received by them from a variety of sources while researching the background to the controversies affecting Malta during 2018. "Sandstone took the view that the report was weak and un- convincing, and chose to make no use of it. It was never for- warded in any form to Chelgate Ltd, nor to any representative of the government of Malta, nor to any other third party. It there- fore formed no part of any me- dia briefings," Schneider said. "The fact that this weak and inaccurate report was provided to the EUObserver, with false indications as to its usage, sug- gests an act of deliberate misin- formation by a third party which by now has been identified by Sandstone and provided to the state prosecutor in support of the criminal investigation." Schneider said that while this information was provided to the EUObserver, no attempt to cor- rect or withdraw its damaging and misleading article. Chelgate was tasked to fight claims that the Labour govern- ment ever had dealings with Strategic Communications Lab- oratories (SCL), a British firm accused of election meddling. The House of Commons' cul- ture committee had accused Muscat's party of SCL, to which Chelgate replied with a letter to British MPs denying state- ments in the interim report that the Malta Labour Party had had dealings with the SCL group. Chelgate's full letter to the House of Commons committee remains confidential. The gov- ernment is no longer a client of the firm, and Chelgate signed a non-disclosure agreement. Malta had petitioned the House of Commons committee, saying MPs had listened to "un- named sources" claiming SCL had given services to Muscat's Labour. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt 4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 DECEMBER 2019 NEWS www.scsa.gov.mt | @scsamt from the CEO, Board of Directors, management, and staff at Season's Greetings Intelligence firm denies 'false' allegations of Russian hit-job on Caruana Galizia Sandstone says it never prepared report claiming Russian-Azeri sponsored assassination of journalist Sandstone rebutted what it said were "false and damaging" allegations that a report it authored suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev had conspired to assassinate Caruana Galizia, using a Chechen killer