Konrad Mizzi’s wife and children used diplomatic passport numbers to set up secret trust

Last Saturday, the Times of Malta carried an article about the form Konrad Mizzi filled in for Bentley’s in New Zealand, when setting up his secret trust.

The newspaper included a picture of the form, but redacted the passport numbers of Mizzi’s wife, son and daughter, and the names of the latter two.

However, the form, without redactions, cropped up on Facebook, and somebody sent it to me. And I’m glad he did because the passport numbers are a story in themselves. They are in the number series for Maltese diplomatic passports, which means that the Energy Minister deliberately did not list his wife’s and children’s actual passport numbers but those of their diplomatic passports.

Diplomatic passports may not be used as documentation in the setting up of personal financial structures or for personal business.

Beyond that, for obvious reasons that should be obvious, you are required to give your passport number in documentation like that because it serves as a permanent identifier and makes for traceability. But diplomatic passports are not permanent. They are retained by the holder only as long as he/she continues in office, and are immediately withdrawn by the government when the individual ceases to be in office.

Mrs Mizzi holds a diplomatic passport because she is a Malta government envoy. Her children, presumably, hold diplomatic passports because they are with their mother. When she leaves her position in August, as her husband said she would, her diplomatic passport has got to be withdrawn, as have those of their children.

Which brings us to the next issue, another one which has not been tackled. Mizzi said that his wife would leave her position in August because it is incompatible with his new position as deputy leader of the Labour Party (though apparently it is fully compatible with his position as a minister of the government she represents).

Now that he has resigned from the deputy leadership, will Mrs Mizzi still be resigning from her unspecified state-paid position in Shanghai? Or have those two changed their minds?