Just in case we forgot

The gruesome details of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder justifiably overshadowed the news last week. The prosecution is right in accentuating the nature of this murder. It was not only a murder but an intentional act to wipe out a person in the literal sense.

We also witnessed the defence attempting it’s very best to implicate Keith Schembri, the former chief of staff in the Joseph Muscat administration, in the murder plot to kill Caruana Galizia. How this will pan out in the judicial process is the million-dollar question.

But as all this was taking place another judicial process came to an end. In a landmark 76-page judgment Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace found five brothers—Antonio, Gaetano, Raymond, Salvu, and Emanuel Farrugia—innocent and acquitted them of complicity in corruption charges related to the long-running Enemalta oil procurement scandal.

The five brothers were not accomplices but victims of a secret corruption scheme orchestrated by their elder brother, George Farrugia, who had received a presidential pardon in 2013 to become the prosecution’s star witness, according to the court.

Now, 2013 seems to some a very long time ago. But I think we need to remind readers that the oil scandal remains perhaps a failure of two governments. The PN government for allowing this institutional corruption to go on unchecked and the Labour government for failing to ensure that justice is done and seen to be done.

Today, all the players in the corruption scandal, most especially George Farrugia, continue to operate as if there is no tomorrow.

George Farrugia was the kingpin; the man at the centre of the scandal. He siphoned off hundreds of thousands of euros from kickbacks related to oil sold to Enemalta and yet was given a presidential pardon by the outgoing Lawrence Gonzi administration in 2013.

George Farrugia’s wife, Cathy, who was complicit by hiding the illicit transactions from his brothers, served as secretary to Lawrence Gonzi for a very long time when he worked with a prominent private firm.

When MaltaToday in January 2013 published the findings of a civil judicial process the Farrugia brothers had opened some time back against their brother George, all hell broke loose. The Farrugia brothers owned John’s Garage and other subsidiaries, one of which dealt in oil trading. The latter was managed by George Farrugia.

At the time, the Labour Party led by Joseph Muscat made a feast out of the scandal and used it to win the 2013 election with a landslide. The scandal was the final nail in the PN administration’s coffin.

But at the time many tried to discredit the story. Some media houses, prominent bloggers and PN sympathisers rubbished the story and worst of all pointed their guns at George’s brothers, accusing them of corruption.

The owners of John’s garage hailed from Hamrun and had long been Nationalist diehards. They were well known to support Nationalist candidates in a very big way, namely by providing them with minibuses and luxury cars during the electoral campaign. Austin Gatt and Jason Azzopardi were two notable recepients of these donations.

Yet, this did not stop Nationalist MPs, including Simon Busuttil, Beppe Fenech Adami and Jason Azzopardi to question why the brothers were not prosecuted. They put pressure on the police, who eventually responded to their calls.

The story was very simple: Try to obfuscate the facts and take away all the attention from the rat in the pack—George Farrugia.

The police under former Police Commissioner Michael Cassar and then Inspector Angelo Gafa proceeded to accuse the brothers, co-directors in the family-owned Power Plan Limited of acting as principals or legal representatives in complicity with George Farrugia’s bribery of Enemalta officials and other entities. 

Instead of being treated as victims defrauded by their own brother, they faced criminal charges. George, the brains behind nominee structures like Aikon Limited (a Swiss-registered entity hidden from his siblings), received a pardon on Lawrence Gonzi’s insistence.

In the court case George Farrugia’s testimony was riddled with inconsistencies and inventions and the court saw through this, liberating his brothers from all charges.

George Farrugia did claim to have paid approximately half a million dollars in commissions to public officials, including to then Enemalta chairman. What is sure is that his brothers did not know about his dealings.

George Farrugia profited personally while defrauding the family business and yet the Nationalist Party waged a war of character assassination against the brothers until the police responded with firm action against them.

Lawrence Gonzi’s decision to award George Farrugia a presidential pardon was intended to uncover broader corruption post-2005. In return Farrugia implicated his innocent brothers while shielding or minimising his own role.

The truth is that Farrugia did not fulfil his pardon’s terms. In an ideal world it would be reviewed or withdrawn, I cannot see it ever happening and Farrugia will continue with his life until everyone will forget what took place more than 13 years ago.

I for one cannot really forget. The subterfuge, excitement and secretive meetings of putting the biggest story of my career together will remain with me forever. Neither can I erase the deluge of abuse that followed the publication of that news story from all segments including bona fide media such as The Times and The Independent.

This story will definitely resurface when separate proceedings against others implicated in the wider scandal, such as Tancred Tabone (former Enemalta chairman), Frank Sammut, Francis (Cikku) Portelli, and Anthony Cassar will be decided in court.  The fact that they have not is surely an indictment on the sluggish Maltese judicial process.

What is certain is that the brothers’ ordeal, reputational damage and drain on resources underscores how one individual’s actions can destroy an entire family. They built a legacy business only to be victimised by internal betrayal and unfair and abusive political discourse.

This case serves to remind us that prosecutions based on a pardoned witness’s word can be dangerous, especially when the beneficiary of the pardon is key to the wrongdoing.

True justice requires holding the masterminds accountable without punishing the innocent. The Farrugia brothers deserve not just acquittal, but acknowledgment of the profound injustice they endured and the courage to stand up to their crooked brother who found protection from the politicians of the time, namely Lawrence Gonzi and his Cabinet.