Cassola tells President: Strip Joseph Muscat of Ġieħ ir-Repubblika

Independent candidate Arnold Cassola has renewed calls to the President George Vella to strip former Prime Minsiter Joseph Muscat of Ġieħ ir-Repubblika. 

The renewed call comes following developments in court on Saturday regarding Muscat’s former Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.  

Schembri was denied bail despite pleading not guilty to charges of corruption and giving false testimony. He was also accused of forgery.  

On Saturday, Schembri was charged together with his elderly father Alfio Schembri, a director of several of the Kasco companies, and business partner Malcolm Scerri and financial controller Robert Zammit. 

Also charged with separate money laundering charges were former Nexia BT partners Brian Tonna, Karl Cini, Manuel Castagna and their financial controller Katrin Bondin Carter, as well as Zenith Finance’s owners Matthew Pace, a former PA board member, and Lorraine Falzon. Zenith was formerly MFSP Financial. 

Cassola’s calls for Muscat to be stripped of Ġieħ ir-Repubblika had initially come in 2019, with the requested motivated by what he claims was the former PM’s covering of his “corrupt colleague’s” behaviour.  

“We now have concrete evidence in the hands of chief of staff Keith Schembri, that the disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was covering, if not even encouraging himself,” he said.  

The independent candidate also said the Maltese economy will earn another “fatal blow due to the bad advertisement that these two political delinquents (with others) are making”.  

“The country and the Maltese people need to give the whole world a strong signal of deterrentness and condemnation for what has happened, together with a strong alt-right sign of national moral and ethical risk,” Cassola said. “I hope that, this time, my request will not be ignored.”