Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/814533
4 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 23 APRIL 2017 News TIM DIACONO PRIME Minister Joseph Muscat cast further doubt on the verac- ity of a transcript of a declaration of trust, that was published by Daphne Caruana Galizia and that alleges that his wife is the ben- eficial owner of a secret offshore Panama company. Responding to questions by MaltaToday at a press conference yesterday morning, Muscat ques- tioned why the transcript lists his wife's place of birth as Rabat when she was actually born in At- tard. He said that Michelle Muscat's ID card wrongly lists her place of birth as Rabat, the town she grew up in, and suggested that whoever wrote the transcript had gleaned the information from the Elec- toral Register. He also dismissed the transcript as a fabrication on the grounds that it listed the registered ad- dress of Egrant as Nexia BT's San Gwann offices, as shown in the Panama Papers that was released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last year. "Whoever falsified the docu- ment gleaned the information from the ICIJ's database. This was a big mistake because the data- base refers to the address of inter- mediaries, whereas declarations of trust must refer to the com- pany's registered address. The company's registered address is in Panama and not in San Gwann." Caruana Galizia on Friday night publishes a transcript of two dec- larations of trust that she said were issued by two Panamanian companies Dubro Ltd SA and Aliatar SA, both of which hold shares in Egrant. In the transcript, dated August 2015, the two companies declare that their shares in Egrant are be- ing held as nominee of and trus- tee for Michelle Muscat. The declarations were allegedly passed on to Pilatus Bank by Nex- ia BT and stored away in a safe in the kitchen of Pilatus Bank, whose offices are located at the Whitehall Mansions in Ta' Xbiex. Caruana Galizia has also claimed that Egrant holds a bank account in Dubai and that in March 2016, it received a single payment of $1.017 million from a company whose ultimate beneficiary owner is Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of Azerbaijan's autocratic president Ilham Aliyev. The Prime Minister has vehe- mently denied the allegations and has sued Caruana Galizia for libel. At yesterday's press conference, he reiterated the argument he had posed on Xarabank on Friday – that exists clear documentation to prove that Nexia BT chief Bri- an Tonna is the sole shareholder of Egrant and that he never trans- ferred the shares to a third party. "The two companies in ques- tion [Dubro Ltd SA and Aliatar SA] are subscribers, meaning that they had originally formed the company in question [Egrant]. Documents prove that they had passed the company on to Brian Tonna in 2013, so how could they then have passed it on to a third party two years later?" Muscat flags more 'errors' in transcript of Egrant declaration of trust Busuttil: Inquiry is colossal cover-up YANNICK PACE OPPOSITION leader Simon Busuttil has dismissed as part of a "colossal cover-up" a magiste- rial inquiry launched to investi- gate allegations that the Prime Minister's wife is the holder of a share in the Panamanian off- shore company Egrant Inc. Busuttil yesterday said the in- quiry cannot be expected to un- cover any damning evidence, as the police had failed to instantly raid the offices of Pilatus Bank as soon as the allegations were published on Daphne Caruana Galizia's blog. He said bank's chairman Seyed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad and another bank employee were filmed exiting the back door of the bank carrying two suitcases. "After they removed the evidence, Muscat decided to call for a magisterial inquiry. It's like asking the police to investi- gate a murder after the body has been removed from the crime scene. "We will not play a part in such a colossal cover-up. It was Muscat's responsibility to ensure that the crime scene wasn't tampered with and he should have called in the police instantly. However, he didn't do that because if the police found proof it would have incriminat- ed him." His comments came after Caruana Galizia said she would not testify in the inquiry. Busuttil said he has full faith in the independence and integrity of the inquiring magistrate Aar- on Bugeja, but that this means nothing as he cannot be expect- ed to find any proof. He also said that Muscat has an enormous conflict of inter- est, between his duty as Prime Minister to ensure that justice takes place and his role as a sus- pect in the magisterial inquiry. "How can a Prime Minister ensure that the investigations will be a serious one if he is be- ing investigated himself?" he asked. He also said that he cannot trust Pilatus Bank, arguing that it should never have been issued a license in the first place as its owner is from Iran – a country that Malta, as an EU member state, has imposed sanctions on. Seyed Ali is Iranian but a hold- er of Saint Kitts and Nevis pass- port; the other shareholder is a Hong Kong corporation called Alpene Limited. It is unclear whether Seyed Ali is connected to specific sanctions mandated by the EC or the United States' OFAC. Additionally, Busuttil accused Muscat of lying five times in 24 hours. He rejected his asser- tion that Egrant did not have its Panamaniam address listed in the alleged declaration of trust, since the San Gwann address was the same one listed for the companies Hearnville Inc. and Tillgate Inc., owned by Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri re- spectively. Secondly, he said Muscat's claims about the sale of shares from the Mossack Fonseca companies Dubro and Aliator, was also a lie. "The document revealed is a declaration of trust and is not a document of sale. It simply says who the owner of the company is." He said Muscat's third and biggest lie was in stating that Nexia BT's Brian Tonna was the owner of the company. "Panama's register of compa- nies makes it clear that Egrant shareholders are Dubro Ltd and Aliator." He said it was not true that Tonna was the owner of the companies since the two companies were listed as the owners up until the date they were liquidated. Muscat's fourth lie, said Bu- suttil, was his instance that the supposed transcript stated that his wife's place of birth was Ra- bat when it was in fact Attard. Busuttil said that given that her ID card states that she was born in Rabat, whoever put down her name had access to her ID card. Finally, he said that while Muscat claimed that the tran- script's authenticity could also be challenged on the basis of there being no ID card or pass- port number, a declaration of trust does not require an ID card number, something ex- perts could attest to. Joseph Muscat said the transcript published by Daphne Caruana Galizia got his wife's place of birth and Panama company's address wrong