Manuel Mallia lied: he hasn’t sold any real estate recently, still less for half a million in cash
Police, Army, Prisons, Broadcasting and Films Minister Manuel Mallia said that he has half a million euros in cash because he has just sold some property.
Because, you know, he has become so accustomed to dealing in cash transactions, with those clients he has – excuse me, had – that he thinks paying for a piece of real estate with half a million in hard bank notes is normal and nothing to do with wanting to avoid the banks for tax evasion or money-laundering reasons.
When your fees routinely come from the proceeds of drug crime, you’re not exactly going to sniff at somebody who pays for the real estate you sold him with a suitcase full of 500-euro notes.
But anyway, there’s a straightforward way to find out whether he lied about selling that property: a search in the records.
Members of my international worldwide network of spies, this time beavering away in the notarial profession, spent the best part of this morning searching the Public Registry archives for Manuel Mallia’s real-estate transactions.
They went right back to the 1990s and found no sale for half a million. And the last thing he sold was a couple of years ago.
The PDFs are uploaded here, should they interest you. Ignore the ones which bring up references to Emmanuel Mallia that are clearly not him (“widow of Emmanuel Mallia” etc).
The searches were conducted using his personal name. He could have sold through a company, you argue. Ah yes, but if he’s keeping half a million of the company’s cash at home, in his personal piggy-bank, even more eyebrows will be raised. And that’s quite apart from the fact that a company has, at law, a distinct legal personality from that of its shareholders. “I sold” and “the company sold” mean two different things at law and in reality.
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Mallia never said the cash is at home, which it might have reasonably been if the transaction were recent. Where is he hiding it? That says even more about him and the purpose of his cash holding, especially now we know that he lied about its source.
Mallia, “top” criminal lawyer, only recently Minister of Justice, and still Minister of national security, appears to be breaking several laws with impunity. his friend and appointee, Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit, hasn’t taken action. What does the Minister of Justice, Joseph Muscat, have to say about this?
It seems that we won’t be having a silly season next August.
He must be running a banking system for his clients.
One did not need to carry out a search at the Public Registry to realise that Manuel Mallia lied. The search only confirmed it.
He did not declare any company in his decleration of assets, so if he did in fact sell “his” property via a company, he was lying then.
Brilliant! And this is someone who got over 5,000 first-preference votes! People really get impressed and vote on superficial attitudes.
He needs to go now!
No more complaints from the Labour camp, or anywhere else, about Malta lacking the culture of resignation when prominent people are caught acting ignobly much below the dignity demanded by their high office.
They seem to have acquired, not only the bulky corpulence of the African rhinoceros, but also the bullet-proof thickness of an impenetrable hide.
X’cuc hi l-blokka silg. Mhux ta’ b’xejn zarmaw depot.
Toni Abela m’ghandux ghalfejn jinkwieta fejn isibhom il-pulizija laburisti.
If he did sell through a company (distinct legal personality aside) why would he keep company money at home ?
The selling of property is a public act that needs to be publicly documented in a contract and publicly registered.
A journalist from the media should ask Emmanuel Mallia – Minister for National Security, the Army, the Police, Broadcasting and Government Catering – a very specific question: which property he sold, for how much, the date of the contract, to whom he sold it, which notary public documented the deed, how much tax was paid on the sale, and so on.
Also, since Mallia said that he sold a property, shouldn’t his declaration of income state how much profit he made from that sale?
If the money belonged to a company, he wouldn’t have declared it.
Then again, it could have belonged to a client, who’s died naturally, accidentally, or been killed in the meantime. You never know.
Mallia said he disposed of some property which he’d had. If it belonged to a company, he was lying.
Maybe he sold other ”property” that is not necessarily land.
…. or, maybe he’ll claim the ” property ” was somewhere overseas …..
Ministru tas-sigurta nazzjonali, my ass.
Well take a look at this:
http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=Teskala+l%2Dkri%26%23380%3Bi+politika+hekk+kif+ikomplu+l%2Dprotesti&t=a&aid=99849266&cid=20
It seems once a socialist always a socialist which ideology always ends up in corruption and nepotism galore. Here in Malta, worse things happened, but all of us happily dormant. What a sick nation.
“They went right back to the 1990s and found no sale for half a million. And the last thing he sold was a couple of years ago.”
Unless I overlooked some deed from those PDFs, the only thing that Mallia did some two years ago (2011) was the purchase, rather than the sale, of property in Msida for the stated value of €200,000. This is the last one shown in the second PDF.
The stage has been set for a most clamorous acquittal of someone accused of the murder of Camilleri snr.
It would be the result of an unseemly rush “job” of a hasty forensic autopsy carried out in two stages, and the unprecedented hasty burial and exhumation of a notorious major drug trafficker.
The splendid detective work of the investigating homicide squad is most likely to be undone and rendered futile.
And it will all be achieved under the tutelage of a Minister of HomeAffairs, Justice etc and former defence lawyer of the victim, and a recalled MLP-leaning gazzetted police officer to occupy the hot seat of a Commissioner of Police – both astounding appointments by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
Congratulations all round
Manuel Mallia’s portfolio should be renamed the Ministry for National Embarrassment.
I’m sure that, in all his wisdom, Manuel Mallia would have said that the money is not his but a company’s if he absolutely could not avoid it. Besides he does not declare being a shareholder in a company of his (if I own 200 Go plc shares, that does not make Go plc mine) which would warrant his keeping the money as opposed to dividing them amongst all the shareholders (eventually). The press should be asking questions. But of course our press does not have any cojones.
The fact that anyone finds the need to hold half a million in cash is peculiar, to say the least.
However the major concern is that this undermined the primary scope of such assets/income declarations.
If from day one ANY politician is declaring a massive amount as cash in hand – that are not corroborated (since obviously nobody has to date viewed or counted them) – this could provide the opportunity for the said (could be Mallia or anyone else for that matter) politician to eventually accept the same amount as bribe or illicit gain whilst in office, without raising any suspicions over such injection – since it would be equivalent to the original alleged cash funds.
In this regard, if any semblace of the checks & balances that such declarations are intended for are to be maintained, any such cash funds needs to be verified simultaneously by the NAO and the Inland Revenue. The former to verify the physical existence and the latter to verify that the aggregate accumulation of wealth tallies with the historic declared income and inflows including the cost of the particular politician’s lifestyle.
In fact the latter exercise should be conducted for a sample (if not all) of elected politicians – and hopefully it would keep a number of sharks (with apologies to the fin species) away from parliament!
Dan huwa kaz inkwetanti hafna meta l-ministru tal-pulizija u tas-sigurta nazzjonali jigdeb sfaccatament fuq bejh ta’ propjeta li qatt ma sar is-sena l-ohra ta’ nofs miljun euro fi’FLUS KONTANTI jista l-poplu Malti isserah rasu meta dan l-istess ministru hatar lil Kummissarju tal-Pulizija huwa stess u kien prezenti waqt l-interviews biex gew mahtura il membri tas-sigurta nazzjonali jekk jinqala il bzonn biex dan il minstru jigi investigat biex il poplu jkun jaf min fejn gew dawn il flus il pajjiz gie f’pozizzjoni ambigwa li kemm il kummissarju tal-pulizija kif ukoll il korp tas-sigurta nazzjonali qeghdin f’konflitt ta’ interess ghax gew mahtura mill istess ministru u hawn tasal li il poplu jkollu ragun jekk jissuspeta li dan kien kollox ippjanat min qabel biex jinzammu milli johorgu xi affarijiet ohra li jistaw ikunu aktar gravi.
Ma jahsibx il Prim Ministru li ghandu jerfa irresponsabilita tieghu u jidhol fil-fond fuq dan il kaz u jitlob irrezenja tal- ministru Mallia sakemm issir investigazzjoni serja min nies newtrali li ma ghandhom l-ebda konflit ta’ interess.
What a disgusting man he is. I wish someone would do something about him.
Dr. Mallia, Can you please enlighten us on who could have possibly convinced you to be involved in politics, when you have a very profitable business, earning millions.
You knew that you would be forced to declare your assets, opening up your private life to speculation, and possibly investigation of amounts which just don’t make sense.
If you really have ‘only’ EUR500k in cash, the whole reason they are so, is to remain ‘untraceable’, so why did you let the cat out of the bag, when you knew people where going to ask you questions about that amount, even if you say they came from heaven.
The only reason I could possibly come up with, is that you stand to gain far more, than if you stayed put or you are being threatened to do so by some of your clients or by politicians. We now know you put Dr. Cardona to head the prison board. Is the matter going to become worse and more entangled and is all this matter and murders all related?
You owe us all a lot of answers as their are too many coincidences.
But finally, WHO on earth made you do it and WHY?
Manwel Mallia has become MORE popular and prominent nowadays than when he was a criminal lawyer. Well done Manwel !!
Not “popular” but infamous is more correct.
Notoriously prominent, definitely yes, more POPULAR begs the question: more popular with whom? (apart from his traditional criminal class, of course).
QED TARA LIL MIN POGGEJT FIL-POTER JA POPLU GAHAN!