Bannister and Hasheminejad flying together from Frankfurt to Malta

Joe Bannister, executive chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority, and Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, owner and chairman of Pilatus Bank, which is at the centre of a magisterial inquiry into money-laundering, are currently together on a flight from Frankfurt which lands at Malta airport at 11pm.

This is when Muscat has just spent the afternoon listening to members of the European Parliament voice their concerns about the deterioration of the rule of law in Malta and money-laundering activities by people in power.

Bannister and Hasheminejad: the regulator travelling with the regulated – or rather, with the one whose bank he is supposed to regulate but does not.

Inquiring magistrate Aaron Bugeja entering Pilatus Bank accompanied by Godwin Caruana, his court-appointed information technology expert, who last week was removed from his post of CTO at the state information technology agency, MITA.