PN, Repubblika join calls for Ali Sadr Hasheminejad extradition to Malta

The opposition PN’s spokespersons on Justice and Good Governance, Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina, have given their “full support” to a request by the family of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia for the extradition of Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad from the US to face justice in Malta.

This after the US government dropped a sanctions-busting case it had filed against Ali Sadr, despite him being found guilty by an American jury in March. The US Attorney General told the court that he had decided to drop the case because of information in possession of the US government that not even Sadr’s defence team was aware of.

In the US proceedings, the Department of Justice had insisted that Ali Sadr had used funds coming from criminal sources to set up Pilatus Bank in Malta.

“The PN reminds that according to a report by the FIAU, Keith Schembri had taken an particular interest in Ali Sadr Hasheminejad being given a banking licence for Pilatus Bank…This account was used by Keith Schembri to receive money coming from bribes on the sale of passports to three Russian citizens…[and]to receive payments from Adrian Hillman, the ex-managing director of Allied Newspapers.”

Joseph Muscat, his wife Michelle and Keith Schembri were guests at Ali Sadr’s wedding in Venice in 2015, said the PN.

“Before all this, our country mustn’t allow Ali Sadr Hasheminejad escape justice but must do everything possible for him to answer for the reputational damage his inflicted on our country with his complicity and protection of Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri.”

Prime Minister Robert Abela had to choose between defending the interests and reputation of Malta or allow Ali Sadr to escape to carry on defending Muscat and Schembri, the PN said.

“A money laundering machine and a shelter for corruption”

Civil society group Repubblika also expressed its disappointment with the decision by the US prosecutor to drop the case.

“The crimes for which he was found guilty in New York took place before Ali Sadr was licenced to open Pilatus Bank in Malta. Maltese state agencies and the European Central Bank confirmed that which Daphne Caruana Galizia had reported: that Pilatus Bank was a money laundering machine and a shelter for corruption.

The US proceedings had shown that the bank had been used by relatives of brutal dictators to lauder money they had stolen from their countries, said Repubblika.

For these reasons, the group stressed that the Maltese Attorney General must ask for Ali Sadr be extradited to Malta with urgency.