Magistrate orders criminal inquiry into Chetcuti Cauchi over French TV sting

Magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo has ordered a criminal inquiry into lawyer Jean Chetcuti Cauchi personally and in his capacity as director of Chetcuti Cauchi Advisors Ltd and Chetcuti Cauchi Consulting Ltd.

The magistrate upheld a request filed by NGO Repubblika for an inquiry into the IIP scheme operator over allegations of political influence in the sale of Malta’s golden passport, as claimed by a legal firm in a French undercover TV exposé.

In a decree handed down today, the magistrate said that the magisterial inquiry was required to preserve evidence and that, therefore, once an inquiry was opened and further information of law breaches became available to the magistrate, the inquiry was to include these in its remit.

The magistrate gave the example of an inquiry into involuntary homicide after a car accident, but during the inquiry a large amount of illicit substances was also discovered. “Although the inquiry was not about this, the Inquiring Magistrate cannot close his eyes to it and must continue to preserve the evidence about the new turn the inquiry had taken.”

At this stage, the magistrate said, an inquiry to establish whether the facts reported amount to trading in influence under the criminal code was required.

Lawyer Jason Azzopardi is appearing for Repubblika.

Chetcuti Cauchi, a law firm which was the first company after concessionaires Henley & Partners to gain a licence to sell Maltese citizenship under the Individual Investor Programme, has, since the broadcast of M6’s Enquête Esclusive, been suspended from the IIP.

Since the airing of the TV programme in September, both Chetcuti Cauchi’s two licences to promote the IIP have been suspended. A keynote address by Chetcuti was also struck off the scheduled programme at an international passport marketing conference held in Malta last week.

And the Chamber of Advocates has referred Chetcuti’s alleged breach of conduct to Commission for the Administration of Justice to investigate alleged breaches of the code of conduct. The Chamber of Advocates said that while it would conduct its own investigation into whether Chetcuti would be stripped of his membership with the Chamber, it would wait for the conclusions of the judicial watchdog’s committee of advocates.

Chetcuti has publicly declared he never promised to obtain “any illegal advantage” for his clients. “I deny that I promised to obtain any illegal advantage for our clients. I equally deny that I ever spoke to politicians to illegally intervene on our clients’ behalf,” Chetcuti said, adding that he would only be answering questions after any investigations are over.

He added that no client of his, whose application for a Maltese passport was rejected, has ever had the rejection overturned. “We have never accepted clients with a criminal record. In addition, none of our clients has ever had his or her citizenship revoked because of criminal convictions after citizenship was granted,” he said.

“We have no difficulty to open our doors to scrutiny by public institutions. Let them do all the work that the law obliges them to do. It does not worry us. The only thing I ask is that the review of our licence is carried out in the shortest time possible. The livelihoods of 140 families are at stake,” Chetcuti said