Is Manuel Mallia’s ‘sale of Maltese passports’ scheme going to be a sort of witness protection programme for crooks, criminals and the families of dictators?
Aisha Gaddafi, last known to be in Algeria – will she reemerge as Anna Maria Mallia, Maltese citizen and holder of a Maltese passport?
It has so far been mandatory for the government to publish, in its gazette, the names of those individuals who have been naturalised as Maltese citizens.
And this means people who obtain citizenship through marriage, parentage, living in Malta for half a lifetime, and other normally acceptable reasons.
Now the government is to rescind that part of the Citizenship Act which makes this mandatory. It does so because it wishes to keep secret the names and identity of those who buy Maltese passports, and it cannot apply secrecy only to these without also applying it to those who become Maltese citizens by normal means.
We now have to ask ourselves – and this is one of the most fundamentally crucial questions of all – why the government would want to keep secret the identity of passport-buyers.
There is only one possibility: the government plans to sell passports to suspect individuals, and it is these very individuals who are putting it under pressure to include a secrecy clause in the new law. Nobody who is in good faith would demand secrecy, and nobody who is in good faith would oblige.
There is a far more worrying factor: without full disclosure, there can be no scrutiny by the media or the Opposition. This doesn’t only mean that we will have no way of knowing to whom the government is selling Maltese passports, but worse still, we will be unable to find out whether in the process of buying a Maltese passport they have also bought themselves a whole new identity.
From there, it is but a step to files about passport purchases mysteriously going missing over the next five years, especially if those files are not kept by the government of Malta but by a third party in the commercial sector.
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“From there, it is but a step to files about passport purchases mysteriously going missing over the next five years, especially if those files are not kept by the government of Malta but by a third party in the commercial sector.”
They will be especially keen to do so now that the Nationalist Opposition plans to revoke those passports.
I totally agree, however, what if a future Nationalist government decides to change format/security features of current passport thus forcing these mysterious passport holders to reapply for a new one.
The genes of the ‘Maltese’ people are about to change. Forever.
In fact, there is going to be a new Maltese population out there, scattered around the world, and we would not even know about it, its numbers, where it came from and where it is going.
Are the children born to persons after those persons buy a Maltese passport automatically entitled to a Maltese passport? Now that would be what I call a multiplier effect.
I believe that the family members of someone who coughs up 650,000 euro will be entitled to each have a Maltese Passport at 25K a crack.
[Daphne – This is not a matter of faith and belief, Angus. There are facts and you can check them. Don’t take the lazy route.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/11/39940/ You’ll find what you need in this post.]
My question here deals with children born to parents AFTER those parents have acquired the Maltese passport for cash.
If those parents are living outside of Maltese, are their offspring automatically entitled to have a Maltese passport, presumably for free?
I have one question which doesn’t want to go away. Will there be any kind of record in some government office? How are we going to verify if X number of citizenships have been ‘bought’.
Also, can a Maltese court of law order the relevant documents about a particular procurement to be presented in court? One day there is bound to be a case which may require the scrutiny of such documents.
It is only a very small step away from the minister being in a position to issue passports to third parties in full secrecy, bypassing even the concessionaire.
With a well placed Labour lackey at Identity Malta (Joe Vulgar Bonnici) it may even be possible for passports to be issued and the Euro 650,000 pocketed and nobody would be any wiser.
A veritable den of thieves and a system that is riddled with opportunity for those who are able and willing to abuse it.
The only reason for all the secrecy is certainly the credentials of the potential clients.
The government has too many skeletons in its cupboard as far as this hotch-potch of a scheme is concerned. As long as it insists on secrecy it can never be credible.
The CIA will obviously find out who the purchasers are, even before they have been issued with their fake passport.
Maltese passports will all become highly suspect and will be scrutinised meticulously at ports and airports all over the world.
Eventually the particulars of the purchasers will undoubtedly come to light.
Can’t the EU do something about it – after all the people who will buy these passports will be EU citizens as well.
Part of the process involves registering a birth certificate in the public registry. These details are ‘transferred’ onto a Maltese birth certificate and the registry number forms the ID card number, suffixed with an L.
I wonder how thorough the due diligence will be in authenticating these foreign birth certificates.
The prime minister told London that this is being done to attract talent to Malta – yes, hidden talent.
“Speaking in London at The Malta Individual Investor Programme, the Prime Minister said the Government’s focus was on the attraction of extremely highly talented and networked people from around the world by offering them the possibility of sharing the Maltese and European journey.”
Citizenship programme aimed at attracting talent to Malta – PM
Times of Malta
They will bring all this talent and share our journey without even showing us their name. How will we know?
Meanwhile, here’s a good candidate for the new ‘sale of passports’ scheme.
http://eyespopping.com/the-worlds-biggest-family-the-man-with-39-wives-94-children-and-33-grandchildren/
AISHA GADDAFI has blood on her hands. She should be executed for her crimes.
Ghall-kuntrarju, Aisha Gaddafi tapplika ghac-cittadinanza Maltija, terga’ tqum fuq saqajha, u tivvendika ruhha ghal li ghamlu lill-missierha f’pajjizha bil-protezzjoni tac-cittadinanza Maltija.
They won’t publish names in the interest of protecting national security. That implies risk. That is a reason to expose the identity of passport buyers, not hide it.
Why would anyone of good faith and who is financially sound a risk to national security?
I think that this scheme is going to wreak havoc with our national security. Malta is going to become under immense pressure by rogue states who will demand the return of their nationals who would have acquired a Maltese passport and who would be hiding somewhere in Malta.
What about, for example, my position as a genuine Maltese citizen?
Am I now to be put in the same suspect basket as all the “New Maltese” population?
Isn’t this bill negatively effecting my birth right? by giving a negative weighting to what was previously very positive?so much so that it was considered the 9th best passport to hold?
This is not right.
NOBODY, except those already in on the scam, voted the Labour Party in to have this done to them.
The new passports will be easy to spot. They’ll bear the legend:
ISSUED IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SPOUSE OF THE PRIME MINISTER
You know what, I think we should have another election, because I don’t like the idea that our government is being controlled by these fraudsters and would like to vote in a government that hasn’t so obviously sold itself to the criminal world, and is about to sell Malta too.
A bit late Edward, you should have seen through Muscat earlier on and not voted him him in the first place.
[Daphne – If you are a regular reader of this comments-board, you would know that Edward is one of the most insightful critics of the Labour Party/government and that he definitely did not vote for them, despite a mountain of peer pressure to do so.]
Vote Labour? Inzabbab.
Let’s come back to the issue of voting at general elections.
How are the public, the Opposition, and the relevant electoral authorities going to verify the number of persons who may have bought a Maltese passport and who are eligible to vote in Malta, and the truth of the basis (facts) on which such numbers were computed?
Let us say the Labour government comes up with 1,000 votes of persons who had acquired Maltese citizenship. How can the facts behind the validity and eligibility of those votes be checked?
The number of such votes can be 1,000, 3,000 or 5,000 – we do not know.
Very good point, Ciccio.
As far as I know the wife of the former PLO leader Yasser Arafat lives or lived in Malta. I however do not know if Arafat can be called a dictator or criminal.
[Daphne – Yes, Suha Arafat lives in Malta and was recently photographed with Mrs Michelle Muscat, spouse of the prime minister of Malta, at a party for, I believe, the graduation of Mrs Arafat’s daughter.]
Arafat was a typical, corrupt Middle Eastern gangster so you wouldn’t be far off the mark by calling him a criminal. His death left a big power vacuum as well so it is reasonable to say that he was no democrat either.
Ha can certainly be called both, and it shows what a joke of a foreign policy we’ve built since independence. We’ve since added China to our list of geopolitical love interests.
Groups like Fatah, Black September, Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade who were arguably under the direct or indirect control of Arafat are guilty of terrorist attacks such as the Achille Lauro hijacking.
Some might call Arafat as a freedom fighter, I brand him as a terrorist and a murderer.
Arafat was given the Nobel peace prize.
[Daphne – Correction, David. It was given to Yasser Arafat, Yitshak Rabin and Shimon Peres jointly for their efforts at securing peace in the Middle East. In other words, it was given to a group and not to an individual.]
This anonymity has two aspects. We Maltese won’t have the pleasure of knowing who the new citizens are while foreign government will be unable to distinguish between genuine Maltese and fake ones.
With the greatest respect. All you people are missing the whole point of what this is all about. There will be NO such thing as a Maltese citizen within a few generations! Nor Italian, German, French, Spanish or anyone else in Europe…everyone will simply be a EUROPEAN citizen just like American and Australian passport holders are citizens of those countries by paying big money to obtain that right. Don’t like the idea? TOUGH because THAT fact my friends is what the EU was always likely to produce. Unintended consequences? Possibly – but very predictable. It is much too late now to cry over the milk that has already been spilled.
[Daphne – Do go to hell in a handcart, Mr Scicluna. A Mintoffian who’s been in Australia since the 1960s, still writes in to support Labour, hates the EU, then doesn’t know what tack to take when his two worlds collide and his Joseph begins selling EU passports. Running this comments-board is as emotionally and mentally draining as working the phones for the Samaritans.]
everyone will simply be a EUROPEAN citizen
The more reason why the EU should fight the anonymity clause of the scheme. It has consequences on all EU member states.