They took the documents that night because the Prime Minister will have informed them that he was about to order a sham inquiry.

Nexia BT took out their documents in the morning (people who work in the same building saw the trolleys being removed and contacted me).

But Pilatus Bank’s could only be removed when the bank’s owner flew in, and so Muscat had to wait until then to order the inquiry. He must have been in a real panic, because Magistrate Aaron Bugeja was due to go off duty at midnight.

In the event, Hasheminejad was filmed removing the documents at around 9pm and Muscat ordered the inquiry around 11.30pm.

It applies to that and to NOTHING ELSE.

‘Innocent until proven guilty’, like ‘criticise the sin but not the sinner’ are the half-thinking plagues of Maltese society.

I’ll give you one example: you own a large company and you know that your managing director has been siphoning off money, but you don’t have “hard and authenticated proof” that he’s doing it. You just jolly well know that he is.

So you sack him. You don’t say ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and leave him there to carry on ripping you off.

This story began in February last year. Then, in April last year, the documents known as the Panama Papers were published across the world. In that massive tranche of millions of documents from Mossack Fonseca’s server in Panama, there were emails from Nexia BT to Mossack Fonseca in Panama.

It was in those emails that one was found from Karl Cini at Nexia BT to MF in Panama, saying that the name of the Egrant UBO would be given not in writing but over Skype. This is because emails can go astray or easily copied or forwarded, even by accident.

The UBO of an offshore company is always recorded in writing. It has to be, unless the shares are bearer shares, which in these circumstances they are not.

But that documentation is always locked up in corporate services offices or banks – as in this case. A bank needs that information before it will open an account for the company.

So no, it isn’t contradictory.