Joseph Muscat’s jailbird friends

You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they surround themselves with.

Disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat made headlines last month when a video surfaced of him mingling with convicted felon and celebrity watchmaker Jacob Arabov at a tacky ‘Billionaire Dinner Club’ held in Sardinia. 

‘Jacob the Jeweller’ became a hit with hip-hop artists in the mid-1990s for designing the oversized bobbles that dangled around their necks, wrapped their wrists and festooned every finger in a gaudy display of wealth.

It turns out Arabov isn’t just a convicted felon who was found guilty of falsifying records and giving false statements in a 2006 drug profit money laundering case — charges that saw him do federal time in addition to paying a $50,000 fine and $2 million forfeiture to the US government.

This former jailbird is also an accused sex offender.

In a lawsuit filed in New York on 3 July, former porn star Adria English claims she was coerced into drinking alcohol laced with narcotics and forced to have sex with Arabov by the party’s host, Sean Combs, who performs under the stage name ‘Diddy’.

English claims she was later “passed off” to and sexually assaulted by other guests at the party.

The lawsuit also names Tamiko Thomas as a defendant, comparing her and Diddy to the notorious sex traffickers Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. 

“Without Defendant Thomas,” the lawsuit states, “a woman using her inherent good will as a woman to gain the trust of another woman coordinating and acting as an avatar for Defendant Combs, he would be unable to execute his corrupt sex trafficking organisation.”

Diddy has been accused of sexual assault and human trafficking in eight lawsuits.

Muscat claimed he was a guest at the Sardinian resort where he was caught on camera with Arabov and that he had “no further relation with him”.

The disgraced former prime minister didn’t comment on his connection to the resort’s owner, Flavio Briatore, who was convicted of fraud by an Italian court in 1986 for his role in a confidence trickster ring.

Briatore dodged jail time by fleeing to the Virgin Islands, only moving back to Italy after being granted amnesty.

It isn’t known when they first met, but a photo posted on Briatore’s Facebook page on 15 November 2018 with the comment “primo minister!! Grazie per l’accoglienza” shows them together at what appears to be Castille, the prime minister’s office in Malta.

I guess it could be worse. At least none of the former fugitives whose company Muscat enjoys was arrested while on vacation with him. The same can’t be said for Iosif Galea.