Maltese Politician Charged With Corruption
The chief of staff to a former Prime Minister of Malta pleaded not guilty to corruption, money laundering, and fraud on March 20. Comment start (Berthold Werner)
Prosecutors in Malta charged Keith Schembri, the chief of staff to former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, with financial crimes on March 20. At his arraignment, Schembri pleaded not guilty to accusations of fraud, corruption, and money laundering over the course of more than a decade. A judge denied him and his ten co-defendants bail, forcing them to remain in custody throughout their trial.
Police first arrested Schembri on September 22, 2020, on charges of illegally selling Maltese passports to foreigners for personal profit. Now, prosecutors allege that he even laundered money through foreign accounts and abused his position in the government. Such charges affirm the suspicions and investigatory work of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist who first investigated Schembri’s role in the global Panama Papers leak of 2016. She alleged that Schembri and other government officials were using secret offshore companies in New Zealand and Panama. In October of 2017, Galizia died in a car bombing, sparking public protests regarding the government’s alleged involvement in her death. Such pressure led Schembri to resign as chief of staff on November 26, 2019, followed by Muscat on January 13 of the following year. George and Alfred Digiorgio, the two men convicted of planting the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia, requested presidential pardons on March 23 in exchange for testimony about an unnamed government minister’s role in the murder.
The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, a non-profit that colleagues and family members founded in the journalist’s memory, states on its website that although the board believes the government should have charged Schembri years ago, it nevertheless supports the current proceedings: “Prosecuting Schembri today brings us a step closer to a Malta where no one is above the law.” Schembri’s political rivals also praised the proceedings. Simon Busuttil, a Nationalist Party politician and the former leader of the opposition to Muscat’s Labour Party, celebrated the charges and accused his opponents of being corrupt. “It’s an indictment of the entire Labour establishment,” he tweeted. Nationalist Party politicians are now calling for a parliamentary debate on Schembri’s alleged crimes, which they could use to publicly tie the administration of current Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela to the actions of his predecessor.
Even international observers are expressing concern over the worsening corruption in Malta’s government. Transparency International, an organization that publishes reports on corruption in 180 countries, declared Malta a “significant decliner” in public trust. The country dropped a total of seven points on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in the last five years, which uses opinion surveys to gauge factors like financial crime, access to information, and bureaucracy. Additionally, an EU commission staff report from last year criticized Malta for not doing enough to punish official misconduct, noting “a track record of securing convictions in high-level corruption cases is lacking.”
The ruling party of the EU’s smallest member state remains tainted by Caruana Galizia’s murder and its consequential ongoing political crisis, pushing confidence in the country’s leaders and institutions to an all-time low.