OPM was not aware of Pilatus’s Arizona lawsuit against Caruana Galizia – Muscat

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said that Pilatus bank acted alone when it decided to file a lawsuit against Daphne Caruana Galizia back in May, and had not consulted the Office of the Prime Minister, of chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Last week, MaltaToday revealed that the private bank Pilatus and its owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad had sued the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia for defamation in an American court.

Court documents show that Sadr and Pilatus sued Caruana Galizia on 8 May in Maricopa County superior court, in the state of Arizona, where GoDaddy.com’s headquarters are located.

Muscat was replying to two parliamentary questions by former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, who asked Muscat whether Schembri or himself were aware that the lawsuit had been filed in Arizona.

“The Office of the Prime Minister learnt about the case when it became public,” said Muscat. 

The lawsuit, with an unspecified claim for damages, was filed at the time Caruana Galizia had alleged that the bank had processed a $1 million transfer from a Dubai company to the wife of the Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat, at the behest of the daughter of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.

In his second question, Busuttil asked whether there had been any form of communication between him or Schembri, and the bank since it had obtained its operating license. Again the Prime Minister denied that his office had communicated with the bank.

“There was no correspondence between the Prime Minister and this bank,” said Muscat. “This also applies to the office of the Prime Minister.”

Speaking later, during Parliamentary adjournment, MP Jason Azzopardi said he was in a position to reveal for the first time, that Maltese media houses had received letters in which the bank said it estimated that its damages from the “false and defamatory statements identified” could exceed €40 million. Moreover, he said the bank added that it had already initiated proceedings in the US.

Furthermore, he said the Schembri had a close relationship with the bank’s owners and had been fully aware of the lawsuit it intended to file against Caruana Galizia.

In addition to Caruana Galizia, Azzopardi said that Schembri had also threatened to pay back other local media organisations before the last general election.

The unnamed media house, he said, had subsequently received a letter on the bank’s behalf, in which it too was threatened with lawsuits for which it could be forced to pay millions in damages.

“We must ask whether Henley, Castille and Pilatus bank are the three heads of a much greater hidden hand,” said Azzopardi.