[WATCH] Maria Efimova to submit alleged declaration of trust belonging to Michelle Muscat if granted whistleblower status

The former Pilatus Bank intern who showed Daphne Caruana Galizia papers alleging that prime minister Joseph Muscat’s wife Michelle owned a secret Panamanian company, has claimed she still has the original documents in her possession.

In a livestreamed chat with former PN radio presenter David Thake on his Facebook page, Russian national Maria Efimova said she would submit the alleged declaration of trust and bank opening forms for forensic analysis “only if I am granted whistle-blower protection and immunity from prosecution.”

Her comments after the full publication of the Egrant magisterial inquiry, which had established that the alleged documents were not authentic.

Magistrate Aaron Bugeja notes that in his inquiry that Mossack Fonseca never had in its possession any declarations of trust pertaining to Michelle Muscat’s ownership of Egrant, because the company never had any owners other than Nexia partner Brian Tonna.

In April 2017, Mossack Fonseca also told Nexia it could not provide statements showing that Muscat never had made such declarations, because it never had such documents in the first place.

The magistrate said that it was proven that Mossack’s Jaqueline Alexander was the subscriber to Dubro’s share in Egrant, while Verna de Nelson was the subscriber to Aliator’s share in Egrant. “Alexander was not the director of Aliator… this is one of principal anomalies in the copies of the declarations of trust published by Caruana Galizia and passed on to the inquiry by Pierre Portelli. It was not possible for her to make a declaration of trust in the name of Aliator because she was not its representative…

“Who falsified the declarations of trust had to only include Alexander for Dubro in one declaration, and not for Aliator whose sole subscriber was Verna de Nelson! This shows a lack of attention to details and facts that appear in official documents.”

Caruana Galizia had copied the text of the alleged declaration of trust verbatim on her website.

“Alexander was not ready to make declarations that could not be verified with files at Mossack Fonseca… this is corroborated by Alexander’s own testimony, who completely excluded that she had written up the alleged declarations of trust, and that she did not recognise their content, and that it was not her signature. This is confirmed by forensic expert Elisabeth Briggs who said the signature on the trust declarations did not match that of Alexander…

“One can hypothesise that Alexander did not do as Cini requested because she was not ready to commit herself to an allegation, she did not know was true or not… what can be proven is Alexander’s confirmation under oath that she was totally extraneous to those declarations of trust…

“Even legally, Alexander and De Nelson as subscribers could not themselves make those declarations of trust,” the magistrate said.