Muscat government gave Ninu Zammit an amnesty for $3.2 million he hid in Switzerland and British Virgin Islands

The story is in the print edition of The Malta Independent this morning. Don’t miss it. The newspaper is under contract as an official media partner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and has access to the data files.

The Malta Independent story includes the “bankers’ notes” which describe how Ninu Zammit – whose profession is given as “government minister” – visited Switzerland with his children to further conceal the money through the British Virgin Islands, with the help of HSBC advisers, when Malta joined the European Union.

Muscat is truly turning out to be the Prime Minister of Shady Deals. He comes to power promising to expose corruption and excoriate the corrupt, and among the first things he does is give an amnesty to a ex PN minister who was in cabinet for a whole two decades – 1987 to 2008, bar the 22 months of Sant government in 1996 to 1998 – and in parliament for another five years after that.

Yes, he gave an amnesty to a former cabinet minister who hid from Prime Ministers Fenech Adami and Gonzi, from parliament and from the electorate, $3.2 million in Switzerland and then, when Malta joined the EU, through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

In January 2013 Ninu Zammit issued a cryptic statement to the media saying that he would not be standing in the forthcoming general election – he had been simmering on the backbench since 2008 because PM Gonzi did not re-appoint him to the cabinet – and then in 2014 he declared his $3.2 million to Muscat’s government and obtained an amnesty.

Anybody who tries to defend either of them for their actions at this stage is on a losing ticket. The scale of it is truly disgusting. Zammit cheated and betrayed people who trusted him in the most vile manner, and then found shelter, a lifeline and absolution in Muscat’s arms. How many more of these are there?

Had it not been for the fact that Ninu Zammit’s transgressions are detailed in the data files which HSBC contractor Herve Falciani took in 2007, and which Le Monde and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists worked on, and had The Malta Independent not been made official media partner with the ICIJ, the Maltese public (and, for that matter, the Nationalist Party itself) would never have known that Ninu Zammit hid $3.2 million in this manner or that Joseph Muscat gave him an amnesty when he ‘came out’ to his government.