The President of the Labour Party, Alex Sciberras quickly walked back his moderate position on the government’s critics as he recently launched a public tirade against the whistleblower of Pilatus Bank, Robert Aquilina.
Robert Aquilina challenged the Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa with Court proceedings, over his refusal to investigate the Pilatus Bank owner, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad and its officials. The Attorney-General also issued a “nolle prosequi” over Pilatus Bank CEO Mehmet Tasli and risk-manager Antoniella Gauci. A Magisterial Inquiry had recommended for these individuals along with other bank officials to be charged in Court.
Robert Aquilina’s challenge in Court is being decided by Magistrate Nadine Lia, who has ruled against Robert Aquilina’s challenge and instead ordered the Police to investigate him for acquiring police documents about the Pilatus Bank investigation. Magistrate Nadine Lia also refused to dismiss herself from the case following a request by the plaintiff. Magistrate Nadine was married to Alessandro Lia, the son of Pawlu Lia, who was Joseph Muscat’s lawyer and also the lawyer for the Labour Party. Magistrate Nadine Lia also featured at a political rally with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat excusing his actions over the Panama Papers scandal right before she was appointed Magistrate.
Clearly, justice is not seen as being done in this case because the Magistrate’s political bias is evident. It is also telling about her character that she refuse to dismiss herself from the case. Her insistence to hear the case raises the suspicions that the Magistrate intends to take a side in the case before hearing and independently analysing the facts at hand.
The Labour Party is celebrating her decision against Robert Aquilina as a victory of “rule of law”, but this is a total distortion from the truth. there’s nothing to celebrate about a Magistrate ordering an investigation against a whistleblower, if anything it shows that even the Courts are now suddenly at the service of the Labour government. Supposedly, we have laws that protect whistleblowers who uncover wrongdoing and irregular activity and this is exactly what Robert Aquilian has done. That the Labour Party is openly attacking whistleblowers is stupid, nonsensical and also self-defeating.
In reality, an investigation into Pilatus Bank and the arraignment of the bank’s owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad won’t hurt the Labour Party at the polls. It may hurt Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi but there’s nothing which could lead it to hrut the LAbour Party. Unless the current Prime Minister has something to lose from such an investigation, opportunistically speaking, the Labour Party has nothing to lose with an investigation. Perhaps, Prime Minister Robert Abela is afraid of the investigation to bite at him given that one of his clients, when Abela still practiced as a private lawyer, was a Russian oligarch who paid a bribe to buy a Maltese passport. Keith Schembri and Brian Tonna used Pilatus Bank to transfer bribes from passport sales. Ironically, this is the President of the Labour Party attacking a Maltese whistleblower whilst simultaneously defending an Iranian banker who is accused of conducting shady money laundering activities in Malta. I hope that Alex Sciberras understands that this is more in character of a criminal organisation than an actual political party with socialist ideals.
What I am definitely sure about is that Alex Sciberras got chided internally for publicly chiding Karl Stagno Navarra over his public stunt against Jason Azzopardi. That was not very Labour-like some have told him because Labour’s current trend right now is to fight for criminals and to distort the rule-of-law in their favour.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply