[LIVE] George Farrugia finds it hard to remember whom he had talked to when oil scandal broke out

Welcome to MaltaToday's live blog of the PAC hearing into the Auditor General's audit of Enemalta's fuel procurement policy

EXPLAINER | Auditor General's report on Enemalta fuel procurement

What we learnt in 2013

20:56 Thank you for following us.

20:55 Noting that Farrugia was now tired - the PAC has been going on since 5pm with over an hour break - the PAC have agreed to adjourn to Wednesday evening.

20:52 "I got to know who my friends were. Because many stopped talking to me and my career was over," Farrugia says.

20:42 Wiping tears off his face, Farrugia says it had been a difficult three months, every day his name featuring in the media.

After the presidential pardon was granted, Farrugia says he didn't speak to Frank Sammut again, nor did he speak to any public officials.

Fenech Adami says that "behind Farrugia's back", his brothers had taken his computer while he was in South Africa and retrieved information from his hard disk. The information on the hard disk had led to the brothers' case against Farrugia after they discovered the fraud he had committed when he siphoned off funds from PowerPlan Ltd to Aikon.

20:38 Farrugia says that when he read the story on 20 January and a subsequent story published the following Sunday, he said the information had to be passed to the media from someone "from the inside" because that information had been on the hard disk.

20:23 A lot of pauses as Farrugia tries to remember whether between Sunday 20 January and Wednesday 30 January when he was called in for questioning. He says he was in touch with Godwin Muscat Azzopardi for consultation, but doesn't know whether it was before or after.

Repeatedly touching his eyebrow as he thinks, Farrugia says "I don't know" and he cannot remember who else he called. Bonnici says he couldn't believe him since he knew "half of Malta".

20:17 Farrugia also says that on Sunday 20 January he had "contemplated a number of things" and he thanked God for "not doing those things".

20:06 Session resumes and Farrugia says he "didn't call any politicians". He is very hesitant to answer the question and says he is "trying to remember".

"Everything crumbled around me that day," Farrugia says as he tries to remember where he was when he read MaltaToday's story.

Trying to remember, he says he was somewhere near the south, either Marsaskala or Kalkara. He remembers that they had visited the sister-in-law at a coffee shop and bought the newspaper from the stationery his sister-in-law worked at.

He says he dropped his wife at home and drove to Borg Cole's house.

"I received a call from Frank Sammut's partner," Farrugia says. Asked who this business partner was, the lawyer interjects to say that giving the name would was "commercially sensitive information".

Farrugia says this business partner subsequently ended his business relation with Frank Sammut after the story came out. This business partner and Frank Sammut had visited Farrugia before Sammut had been called in for questioning.

19:58 Asked whom he had call on Sunday morning of 20 January, 2013 when MaltaToday broke the story, Farrugia says he called his lawyer.

Session suspended for three minutes as Farrugia consults with his lawyers. He is trying to remember who else he had called.

19:48 Farrugia takes a long time to remember whom he had called when the police called him in for questioning.

"I tried calling my wife, but I couldn't get through to her. I tried calling my laywer but couldn't get in touch with him either," he says, adding he then called a third person, Ronnie Agius, in order to get in touch with lawyer Siegfried Borg Cole.

Ronnie Agius is Farrugia's friend (a businessman involved in a cigarette smuggling case) who had been the one to tell him that Tony de Bono had said "I want to ruin Farrugia".

19:39 Meeting resumes.

17:59 PAC suspended for an hour. Meeting resumes at 7pm

17:53 Reference is made to an email Farrugia sent to George Stassis, CEO of Mamidakis Group of Companies, of the outcome of a tendering process for the privatization of the Enemalta petroleum division, prior to the tender being awarded. Farrugia said he had received the information from Ray Ferris, "information which turned out to be completely false".

17:31 Reference is made to a 2010 Yahoo chat showing that Farrugia was still in contact with Ahmed. Ahmed asks Farrugia: "Did the dragon like the diamond?". Farrugia says "dragon" is a reference to his wife (because Ahmed referred to his own wife as "the dragon) and the diamond was a 500 euro tanzanite (a blue diamond) which Farrugia had bought to his wife.

Later on in the chat, Ahmed demands that Farrugia returns a "50K" paid to him. Farrugia says he can reverse the transaction in two weeks' time, but Ahmed wants it done sooner. So Farrugia asks Ahmed if he has "a bank account in Switzerland???" so that he sends him a bank draft from a Swiss bank.

Farrugia says the 50k were money that Ahmed had loaned him. Bonnici says he cannot believe that Farrugia needed to loan money from Ahmed.

The 50k were reportedly needed because PowerPlan Ltd was to sponsor a foreign drag racing team.

Farrugia denies the 50k were needed to pay third parties.

17:24 Bonnici reads from a 2007 email sent to Steve d'Alessandro, a man whom Farrugia sometimes used as his "consultant". In this email, Farrugia writes about the "not so good relationships" between Falzon and Enemalta and Falzon and Austin Gatt. Farrugia says at the time there was an unresolved issue between Falzon Oils and Enemalta over San Lucjan.

"But these are business issues and have nothing to do with the wrong I did," he says.

17:18 In 2010, Farrugia went to watch the World Cup 2010 with Naeem Ahmed of Trafigura, another man named Simon and a fourth man, a South African. The MPs grill Farrugia on why he went to watch the game, despite describing himself as "not a football fan". The witness says he just had wanted to go out of "interest in football".

17:09 Reference is made to an email dated 29 April 2005 addressed to Olivier de Richemont during which George Farrugia writes: "I know I am too nice./ We have to send confirmation about this./ Re payments./ Did not receive anything yet. Re the big one. I need it desperately as cannot do what I have to do./ Please do it or I will be in deep s.".

George Farrugia says he was simply "putting pressure" so he gets paid. He says that "big one" was a "big sum of money". Pressed by both Owen Bonnici and Beppe Fenech Adami, Farrugia says "it could be that I needed to carry out payments but had to wait for Total to pay me first".

Bonnici warns Farrugia of the consequences if he is caught lying.

"Everyone knows that I carried out certain payments. But if they were for the payments everyone knew I did or whether it was about other payments, I can't remember," Farrugia says.

16:49 Good afternoon and welcome back to the first Public Accounts Committee meeting of 2014. This evening's session is scheduled to start at 5pm, with MPs set to continue grilling pardoned oil trader George Farrugia.