Eurosceptics vow to blow top off medical visa ‘scandal’

Ivan Grech Mintoff, a right-wing conservative who in 2014 unsuccessfully contested the European elections, is claiming to have “more evidence” in hand as to an alleged medical visa scam.

Grech Mintoff, self-styled chairman of the minuscule eurosceptic formation Alleanza Bidla, was catapulted into the limelight after police investigators said they had no conclusive evidence to arraign Neville Gafà, an official of the health ministry, on bribery charges.

According to Libyan national Khaled Ben Nasan, Gafà would have pocketed some €150,000 a month to issue medical visas to Libyan nationals – allegations his lawyer, Leslie Cuschieri, sent in writing to then health minister Konrad Mizzi in April 2016.

Ben Nasan, a Libyan import-export trader, had back in 2014 claimed to have played the part of interlocutor with militiamen who had kidnapped Martin Galea outside Tripoli, Libya. The claims were reported by MaltaToday but never reliably confirmed.

That a police investigation has found nothing with what to conclusively arraign Gafà, a man close to the government’s top brass, has rankled those who criticise the government of exerting undue influence on the institutions.

Grech Mintoff on Friday called a press conference, confidently announcing that Libyan army and government top brass would be willing to testify as to the way visas are issued by the Maltese government, evidence of which he had been “shown” by way of receipts, footage, voice recordings, Viber screenshots and other documents that would confirm the alleged bribery.

Some of those Viber screenshots were published in the Malta Independent.

In painting a larger-than-life picture of his politician’s role, Grech Mintoff said Ben Nasan was ignored by both government and the Opposition, until he met the Alleanza Bidla leader. And since news broke of the fruitless police investigation, Grech Mintoff claims the Nationalists “jumped on the bandwagon to score political points” by taking to task the Labour government over the medical visa investigation.

After his press conference on Friday afternoon, at 3:38pm the police called Grech Mintoff to submit any information he had in hand.

But Grech Mintoff decided against going to the police, ostensibly because MaltaToday had been “fed sensitive information” by publishing the inconsequential news that the police had taken an interest in Grech Mintoff’s allegations, which it reported that day at 4:40pm.

On legal advice, Grech Mintoff decided to drop in at the police HQ and this time praised the police force, saying he was “convinced they are doing diligent work” but claimed that they were under political pressure.

When MaltaToday spoke to him yesterday, Grech Mintoff demanded the newspaper reveal its source as to how it was informed that police had spoken to him. When the newspaper refused - leaks are par for the course in this business - Grech Mintoff said he would not speak to the journalist.

From then onwards, Grech Mintoff said he would not share any information with the police, but broadcast what he knows on the programme Exodus, a programme he and another Alleanza Bidla figurehead – Anthony Calleja – present on F-Living TV.

“If I were now to divulge anything very serious to the police, will it also end up in the media of the progressive liberals like MaltaToday? I hereby urge the investigating officers to investigate this leak to the press so that confidence from my side in the police may be restored,” Grech Mintoff thundered in a statement yesterday evening.

On his part, the health ministry official, Neville Gafà, has claimed he will sue The Malta Independent and Opposition leader Simon Busuttil over a report and other claims that were made since news broke that police were closing investigations on the bribery allegations.

His lawyer, the former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit, reiterated that Gafà “never received any monies in any way or manner” aside from his government salary.

According to Ben Nasan’s allegations, reported in the Malta Independent, Gafà was said to have “personally made between €2 million and €3 million from the racket since it began operating in 2014”.

Ben Nasan claimed that Gafà had started a new medical visa application process through which Libyans would send over their passports in advance, and Gafà would charge varying prices for the courtesy.

Adding yet more flavour to the story was some cloak-and-dagger accusations from Gafà himself, who claims the allegations originally stem from an “anonymous high-ranking Libyan secret service officer” – if not the whistleblower Ben Nasan, then some client he represents.

Gafà said that under a memorandum between both countries, a medical visa for a person injured in the Libyan conflict had to be first reviewed by the Libyan authorities, and then screened by the Malta Security Service, police, immigration and medical departments as agreed between both governments. “All expenses as regards the patient are entered into a government account as debt is subsequently settled by the Libyan authorities. No fees or charges were levied by myself or the respective departments for the vetting of the persons concerned,” Gafà said.

But Gafà had been featured in screenshots of Viber chats as having entertained a demand by Ben Nasan to meet and settle the return of some €38,000 after some medical visas to various Libyans did not transpire. 

While the chats and their contents raise suspicion about Gafà’s relationship with the whistleblower – for the civil servant was clearly on more than professional terms with him – Gafà alleges the Viber chats show Ben Nasan was a sort of middleman collecting monies from others “on the unfounded pretext of having Libyan or Maltese clearance.”

Ben Nasan also showed Grech Mintoff the chats and voice recordings, leading the Alleanza Bidla figurehead to hold his own press conference on Friday and claim they were “just the tip of the iceberg”.