Cyprus: Police charges against Efimova not connected to Maltese arrest warrant

Cypriot government tells Council of Europe police charges against former Pilatus employee are independent of Maltese charges against Efimova

Russian national Maria Efimova was wanted on criminal charges in both Cyprus and later in Malta
Russian national Maria Efimova was wanted on criminal charges in both Cyprus and later in Malta

The Republic of Cyprus has sent an official letter to the Council of Europe, saying that police are still investigating alleged criminal offences against Pilatus Bank whistleblower Maria Efimova committed back in 2014. 

The letter was sent to the Council of Europe in response to a media freedom alert issued in January 2018 after MEPs called for EU member states to grant Efimova, a Russian national who has lived in Cyprus and Malta, asylum. 

Efimova was said to have been one of the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s main sources on the allegation that the wife of Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat had received over $1 million from Azerbaijan’s rulers at the now-shuttered Pilatus Bank, and that Michelle Muscat owned a secret offshore company. 

But a magisterial inquiry has since decreed that Efimova’s testimony was contradictory and that her claims had not been proven

In a letter sent to the Council of Europe on Tuesday, the Republic of Cyprus insisted that criminal charges issued against Efimova and an arrest warrant issued on 28 November 2017, were “in no way related to the case investigated by the Maltese authorities against Maria Efimova.” 

The Cyprus police are investigating alleged criminal offences against Efimova while she lived and worked in Cyprus, between February 2013 and June 2014, after a complaint was filed by her former employers, the Russian-owned Cypriot company IFD Fragrance Distribution on 13 June 2014. On 28 November 2017, the Limassol district court issued a European Arrest Warrant for the offences against Efimova. 

Efimova was also charged with misappropriating monies from Pilatus Bank after her dismissal from her post three months after being employed in 2016. In April 2017, Efimova became known as the whistleblower who claimed to have seen Muscat’s name on a declaration of trust attesting to the ownership of the Egrant offshore company. After the arrest of Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad in the United States in February 2018, Efimova handed herself in to Greek police in Athens, where she fought an extradition request by Malta’s courts to face the criminal charges against her. The court refused the extradition on what was deemed a minor offence. 

Efimova, who lived in Cyprus four years ago before moving to Malta, claimed the “new charges” by Cypriot police were part of a plot to discredit her and to extradite her to Malta, where she was wanted to answer for charges filed against her before the Egrant affair, after failing to turn up for court sittings. Efimova left Malta in August 2017, claiming she feared for her life and that of her family, after having given evidence to the prosecution on the allegations regarding the PM’s wife ownership of the Panama offshore company.  

Efimova was said to have applied for political asylum in an unspecified European Union country. The European Parliament, asked EU member states, including Malta, to protect Efimova and grant her asylum, after a delegation led by the Portuguese MEP, Ana Gomes visited Malta in late November 2017.