Aliyev, Albani, Zammit and Morsi

Last Sunday, The Times of Malta interviewed a man accused of allegedly commissioning a double murder, the torture of two bodyguards, and now also of money laundering - Rakhat Aliyev. Perfectly normal, I should say, for a journalist to engage with personalities from the criminal world. Yet glamourising criminals and painting them as victims is diabolical, to say the least. But I am not surprised.

If you the read the interview in The Times of Malta, it is more than evident that the Times journalists were actively seeking to portray Aliyev as some kind of victim. 

In so many more words, a victim struggling to escape from the treachery of those who wanted him dead.

The Times has a strange way of dealing with stories and turning them around. Mr Aliyev is presently publishing a book with The Times, and it goes without saying that the last thing on the mind of any Times journalist is to rubbish Mr Aliyev.

Mr Aliyev believes he is a marked man, and he lives in a high-security home in Malta. He has also moved around in a car with number plates that do not match the registration of the car. If Joe Citizen were apprehended for fake number plates, it would be the end of the world. But Mr Aliyev, who had all his residence papers processed when Tonio Borg was home affairs minister, seems to be untouchable.

Not so for our editor at MaltaToday, who was arrested and asked by the police to reveal his source about facts related to Aliyev's frozen assets. Today we publish the facts about the legal actions abroad that have led to Aliyev's troubles. Thankfully we are not bound by any local legislation barring us from publishing.

The man who was married to Kazakhistan's president's daughter seems to have ruffled the feathers of his former father-in-law and run away with some untold riches. Before doing that, he was reported to have tortured and killed some individuals.

The president of Kazahistan is a rather unsavoury character, but Aliyev is no virgin. Aliyev's riches have been the source of multiple investigations in Malta and abroad.

More interesting are the questions raised about the role Maltese lawyers have played in the story.

Aliyev was represented by the flamboyant Maltese lawyer Pio Valletta, until he fell out with Dr Valletta, who had billed Aliyev €150,000 alone for acquiring his residence permit.

A scandalous figure, which raises questions about why Pio Valletta - who knew Rita Schembri, former director at the office of the prime minister and confidante of Godwin Grima - would issue such a hefty bill just to arrange for Aliyev's papers.

Mr Aliyev now has Joe Giglio as his lawyer, given the rift with the greedy Valletta. Giglio is an ambitious criminal lawyer who has stood by Aliyev through thick and thin, and who now seems to be more interested in representing high-profile clients than pursuing his function as an authority in criminal law.

Last week, the Sunday Times published their extensive eulogy of Aliyev, while MaltaToday revealed the interest Mr Aliyev had expressed in purchasing the media company that owns MaltaToday.

Needless to say, it was quite curious to meet up with Mr Aliyev personally after he was at the centre of so many investigative and scathing articles by MaltaToday.

There he was, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, declaring his interest in buying a Maltese newspaper.

But more interesting was that last Sunday's Times of Malta article, which came close to being an exaltation, differed from the writings of another Times journalist, Ivan Camilleri, who had written emphatically about Aliyev's criminal background.

Surely, something must have changed.

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Francis Albani was unceremoniously asked to leave his post at the Malta Tourism Authority and asked to report at the Education Department. This was done by an email sent on Friday evening.

Reason? Ha. Good one. None at all.

I think his mortal sin was that he did not have the same political colouring as Mario Cutajar, who serves as principal permanent secretary and, of course, Malta Tourism Authority CEO Gavin Gulia, a former Nationalist who somewhere along the line became a Labourite!

Now Mr Cutajar will probably appreciate that I am no Nationalist and have no agenda for courting Nationalist groupies. But that does not mean that transfers based on political considerations are on. I can also understand that Cutajar is an angry man, given the way he was treated at Heritage Malta under the chairmanship of Joe Said.

Did Mr Albani carry out his job as corporate and HR director at MTA diligently and efficiently?

Yes or no?

If he did, then why was he removed?

If he was removed for the wrong reason, then Tourism Minister Karmenu Vella should stand up to Cutajar and Gulia and overrule their decision, and ensure that no other vindictive transfers are enacted.

***

I have written countless articles about John Rizzo's post-OLAF investigations and the Maltese political agenda in the Kessler/Inspector Clouseau investigations. Along the line, the case of Silvio Zammit has been lost in the war of words and the endless reportage about the case. But the former PN canvasser who served with so many PN heavyweights, including Francis Zammit Dimech, Michael Frendo and Michael Refalo, is really the victim of a pre-electoral frenzy to nail a former Gonzi adversary.

I have never mixed with the milieu of Nationalist diehards, unlike the Queen of Bile, who associates and fraternises with anyone blue (indeed, anyone who isn't Labour). Unlike her, I have never stepped into Zammit's kiosk or bought his imqaret.

But there are a number of questions that one should ask about Silvio Zammit before jumping on the bandwagon of the Nationalist administration's pre-electoral attempt to give the impression that Gonzi had zero tolerance for corruption. Even though he refused to apply the same corruption yardstick to some of his errant ministers, who did far worse.

Did Silvio Zammit inform the EU commissioner about a €60 million fee? NO.

Did Silvio Zammit tell the Swedish lobbyists that he wanted €60 million to set up a meeting with the EU commissioner? NO.

Did Zammit admit to John Rizzo that the EU commissioner had asked him for money? NO.

Does any email or telephone conversation indicate that Zammit asked for money to influence a change to the directive? NO.

Is it true that if Silvio Zammit is prosecuted, then Gayle Kimberley should be prosecuted as well? YES.

Is it true that Gayle Kimberley instructed Zammit to write the email and was probably acting as a 'double agent'? YES.

Is it true that John Rizzo was unusually overzealous in his insistence upon prosecuting Silvio Zammit? YES.

Has Silvio Zammit's reputation helped his image? NO.

Do the police have a case? NO.

***

The Arab spring is not something that excites many of our readers. But I am sure you would have taken note of the hypocrisy of the US administration to the coup d'état that deposed the democratically elected Morsi in Egypt. When it comes to foreign policy, the US has not changed. It remains entrenched in the belief that anyone who threatens Israel is a threat to the US. Morsi was elected democratically, but it is not democracy that influences American policy. Rather, it is their fear of Islamic States.  So the next time President Obama appears on your screen, preaching about freedom and the people's aspirations and democracy and all that crap, I would advise you to zap to Disney Junior or Animal Planet. Beyond the sound bites, it is nothing more than absolute hollowness. I guess that is a genetic trait in most US politicians.