Adrian Delia has lied to journalists about the documents related to his Jersey bank account

Adrian Delia has been lying constantly to journalists, and by extension to the public, when he says that he can’t remember anything about his Jersey bank account, that he hasn’t seen the original documents and so doesn’t know whether the published scans are real, and that he can’t produce the originals himself because first he has to find them in his office archives and in any case, they only keep their documents for 10 years.

It turns out that this is all lies (it should be obvious, but some people can’t use their common sense or their instincts, and want “proof”). I have it on good authority that when the scandal first broke and key campaign aides demanded explanations from him, he produced the files of documents in double-quick time and, showing them one letter, paper, contract and document after another, blew them off with a wall of sound and circular argumentation.

He did the same with the Nationalist Party’s Ethics Committee a couple of days ago, but unlike his campaign aides the members of the committee, being pretty senior, were not taken in by the wall-of-sound explanations and the rapid leafing through papers. Some of the campaign aides were taken in only because they convinced themselves even against the rising tide of evidence that they should stick with the horse on whom they have gambled so much already, hoping to collect their winnings from next month.

It should have been obvious to people in the media – and to the interested public who are following this compelling saga – that Dr Delia has all the documents immediately accessible and is only pretending he is not. He had absolutely no problem referring to the insurance policy for the flats used in the prostitution racket, remembered that the money for the building came from the Bank of Valletta, and talked about legal letters written to “tenants”.

But then he couldn’t remember his bank account in Jersey, what it was for, or what happened to the £1 million that were paid into it by Eve and Emanuel Bajada over the course of around four years, only to effectively disappear and for Dr Delia to end up with Emanuel Bajada chasing him, using solicitors in London and lawyers in Malta, until he himself was arraigned on white-slavery and money-laundering charges in Malta a year later.