The next Justice Minister who lends his number-plate to his clients

Oct 10, 2025

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The Opposition’s candidate for Justice Minister is Joe Giglio: the incumbent Prime Minister’s best-man, the lawyer to the corrupt Pilatus Bank bankers, an advocate for more relaxed anti-money laundering laws and depenalisation, and supposedly, one of Malta’s top criminal lawyers. He also seems to have a history of mingling with his own clients.

Joe Giglio’s wife, Jeannine Giglio was involved in a very bizarre case in 2012 in which the number plate of her was being used by one of Joe Giglio’s clients: Rakhat Shoraz who went with the name of Rakhat Aliyev. Shoraz was the maiden name of his wife.

Rakhat Aliyev was Deputy a Kazakh oligarch and the Foreign Minister under the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev from 2005 to February 2007. He broke up with the President and fled Kazakhstan in 2007 and eventually landed in Malta where Kazakhstan asked for his extradition. He was eventually arrested in Vienna, Austria in 2014 and died in prison in 2015. Rakhat Aliyev always sustained his innocence and described himself as a dissident as he was charged with serious crimes including the kidnapping and murder of two bank officials in his home country.

On the 22nd August of 2012, when Rakhat Aliyev was hiding in Malta, he was caught by the Police for using a car number-plate that he didn’t own. What’s interesting is the number plate he was using for his unregistered car was owned by Jeannine Giglio: the wife of Joe Giglio and the lawyer of Rakhat Aliyev. The Police pressed charges against Rakhat Aliyev in this case.

What’s also more interesting is that Police Inspector who pressed charges in this case was Kenneth Camilleri, who eventually ended up as part of Joseph Muscat’s security team when Muscat was Prime Minister. This may be relevant because I could not find any more documents about the case and I could not confirm whether this case was actually brought to Court.

Joe Giglio is known as having maintained close ties with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s administration apart from serving as Pilatus Bank’s lawyer.