The AG’s cover is blown – Kevin Cassar

Nobody believes Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg – not even the courts. She’s been caught conspiring with the State Advocate to cover up her despicable perversion of the course of justice.

The court found Victoria Buttigieg and State Advocate Chris Soler deceived the court when they made up a fictitious story about why a court case against Buttigieg had to be heard behind closed doors. The court realised it was all a sham.

The AG fooled the court with false information in November 2022, compelling it to order the case to be heard in secret. Not anymore.  The case will now be heard in public. Judge Doreen Clarke found the AG’s version of events was false. The judge decided there was no reason for the case to remain secret.

The AG has stumbled from one catastrophe to another.  But this must surely eclipse all the rest. Her behaviour is not only shameless but devious.

A magisterial inquiry concluded that there was sufficient evidence for Pilatus officials to face criminal procedures. Their alleged crimes included knowingly misleading financial institutions, transferring, converting and concealing proceeds of crime, and assisting customers in realising the benefit of their crimes.

One of those ordered to face prosecution was Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, who was so close to Joseph Muscat, Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri that they all attended his lavish Tuscan wedding together.

Antoniella Gauci was also on the list. But she’s the daughter and sister of Robert Abela’s canvassers and clients.

Instead of complying with the magistrate’s decree to prosecute, Victoria Buttigieg decided to give some Pilatus officials a get-out-of-jail card – the notorious nolle prosequi. Who was going to find out anyway?  Magisterial inquiries are secret.  Their conclusions remain hidden from the public.

Nobody was ever going to find out about her vile perversion of justice. Nobody would know she let potentially serious criminals off the hook. How wrong she was.

Somebody knew what the AG was up to. They couldn’t stomach the injustice and couldn’t sleep knowing that instead of fighting crime, the AG was thwarting justice. The magisterial inquiry was leaked.

So were the e-mails sent by senior police officers in their dash to justify the AG’s nolle prosequi. Those officers included Deputy Commissioner Alexandra Mamo, Inspector Claire Borg and Inspector Pauline Bonello from the FCID.

They worked at terrific speed.  Deputy Commissioner Mamo insisted with her subordinates that the report should reach her desk by “tomorrow so that I will transmit it to the AG”.

That conspiracy between senior police officers and the AG to exculpate suspected criminals is shocking. They never imagined the country would find out.  They felt safe working in secrecy behind the nation’s back to protect the daughter and sister of Robert Abela’s canvassers.

Repubblika found out.  They challenged the AG’s nolle prosequi in court. Victoria Buttigieg flew into hysterics. In sheer panic, she dragged all her lawyers and the State Advocate to court in November 2022, determined to conceal the truth.

She demanded the case be heard behind closed doors. She insisted that all documents – including excerpts from the magisterial inquiry – presented by Repubblika be kept under lock and key. But she wouldn’t give the reasons for her requests.  State Advocate Chris Soler stated that “there are particular reasons for this request, and we wish to put them down in writing”.

The court refused.  The AG  made up a convoluted story. She declared that because of a decision taken during secret proceedings before a secret international tribunal, Malta “was strictly bound by confidentiality”.  When the judge demanded more information, the AG stated that “the foreign proceedings are secret, and we are prohibited from presenting documents here”.

The judge was unconvinced by such nebulous arguments. “There will be negative repercussions for Malta,” the AG’s team warned.

“So if the nolle prosequi is made public, does that breach confidentiality?” the judge asked.

“Yes, Malta could even possibly be held guilty of contempt by the foreign tribunal for breaching statutory obligations,” the AG replied.

The judge was forced to back down. “The Court does not wish to place the Maltese State in such a position”. He ordered the court hearings to proceed behind closed doors.  But also that the AG bring evidence of the foreign tribunal’s decision.

The AG knew there was no such decision.  Chris Soler started making excuses: “I don’t have control over a foreign tribunal”, and “I will do my utmost and hope I succeed”.

Seven months later, neither the AG nor the State Advocate provided a scrap of evidence that the foreign tribunal had demanded such absolute secrecy. They submitted a pathetic letter that was just a “clarification about how and from whom the tribunal’s decision should be given publicity”.

That letter didn’t order any secrecy.  It didn’t oblige the court to hear the case behind closed doors.  It wasn’t even a decision by the tribunal. It certainly wasn’t binding on the Maltese courts.

The presiding judge was livid. The AG had duped the court.  “The continued hearing of this case behind closed doors cannot continue to be justified,” the court decreed.

So the case proceeded in public.  But when Robert Aquilina started to testify, the State Advocate interrupted, saying his testimony is based on “informal documents which cannot be exhibited”.

“The inquiry report has not been legally exhibited,” he protested.  But it was the State Advocate himself who’d blocked exhibition of the inquiry report.

The AG defied the conclusions of a magisterial inquiry, conspired with senior police officers to exculpate a suspected criminal with links to the prime minister, manufactured a false story to coerce the court to hear the case in secret, obstructed the exhibition of the inquiry report and then blocked key witnesses’ testimony because that same report hadn’t been exhibited.

No wonder Jonathan Attard protects the AG. She is the ideal malleable puppet in Labour’s hands, ready to humiliate herself time and time again for the ignoble cause of protecting Labour’s criminal friends.