Joseph Muscat back to Baku

Disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat was back in Baku, Azerbaijan – the setting of one of the major initial plot twists in his long fall from grace – for a repeat performance speaking at the Baku Global Forum this week.

Baku was where one of the most corruption-laden deals of the Muscat administration had been struck.

As prime minister, Muscat – accompanied by his then-chief of staff Keith Schembri and former energy minister Konrad Mizzi – in an unannounced visit in December 2014 met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and signed a dubious ‘memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation’, the genesis of the rot behind the ElectroGas power station deal.

That agreement led to the government binding Malta to acquire its liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the new power station from SOCAR for 18 years.

And it was back to Baku again for Muscat this week, where he spoke at the 10^th edition of the Baku Global Forum, the Nizami Ganjavi International Center’s annual flagship event.

It was Muscat’s second participation and follows his participation as prime minister in the third edition in 2015 when the now well-known machinations of the ElectroGas deal were in full swing.

Muscat had become a member of the Azerbaijani government-funded political think tank and lobby group, founded by Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev, in 2020 following his resignation from office over the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, which was in turn linked to the corruption revelations associated with the ElectroGas power station in which SOCAR is a shareholder and its LNG supply agreement.

This week was not Muscat’s first participation in the Baku Global Forum, which aims to put an internationally respectable face on the oil- and gas-rich nation with an extremely dubious human rights record.

Just a few months after signing the energy deal on the secret December 2014 trip to Baku with Mizzi and Schembri – which was only made known in Malta after it was reported in the Azerbaijani press – Muscat was back in Azerbaijan addressing the Baku Global Forum’s third edition in April 2015.

Questioned by reporters in March 2015 whether he would be accepting an invitation to speak at the event, Muscat had played coy, saying it was still too early to confirm whether he would be available to take up the invitation.

He gave a keynote address at the forum where he was only one of four then-current leaders present – along with Aliyev himself, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev.

Quoted on Friday by an Azerbaijani news agency, Muscat said “the presence of reputable participants indicates how important and prestigious the forum is”.

Giving a positively glowing assessment, Muscat, who is facing fallout from the Vitals-Steward hospitals ruling back home, said, “This forum brings together leaders, heads of countries, and scientists who can contribute to solving global problems. They are looking for new ways and sharing their experience and opinions.

“At this year’s forum, I learned more about Azerbaijan’s chairmanship in the Non-Aligned Movement. I am sure that after Azerbaijan’s chairmanship, the importance of the Non-Aligned Movement has increased even more,” he added.

Muscat’s murky relationship with Azerbaijan can be traced back to 2007 when he was an MEP. It wasn’t, however, until Muscat’s election in 2013 that this cosy relationship became too close for comfort.

In 2017, it was reported members of the Azerbaijani president’s family held bank accounts with Pilatus Bank, a bank mired in controversy and connections to the Muscat administration that was later shut down for alleged money laundering.

Aliyev’s daughters were found to have transferred €14.9 million from their Pilatus bank account to the Dubai-based Palma Consulting DMCC across three separate transactions between September 2015 and March 2016.

The year before, in February 2014 – 10 months before Joseph Muscat’s under wraps trip to Baku – one of the daughters, Leyla Aliyeva, was hosted by Muscat’s wife, Michelle, at Girgenti Palace. Aliyeva runs the Heydar Aliyev Foundation – a charity organisation named after her grandfather, the former Azerbaijani president.

In practice, the centre aims to expand Azerbaijani culture and soft influence through lobbying efforts and ‘caviar diplomacy’. According to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings in the US, it is mainly funded by the Azerbaijani government.