Exclusive: David Gatt formed ‘breakaway’ freemason's lodge with entrepreneurs

Updated at 3:17pm with clarified statement by SGLOM.

Alleged ‘crime boss’ David Gatt, currently facing charges of association with organised crime, had been a freemason for eight years, before he joined a seceding group of lodges that broke off from the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta last year.

In new revelations concerning Gatt’s private life, sources from two lodges confirmed that Gatt was a Master Mason with Fenici, one of the lodges under the jurisdiction of the SGLOM.

But he was later made ‘grand chancellor’ of the self-styled Grand Lodge of Malta, after Fenici and two other lodges broke off the mainstream umbrella organisation.

Gatt, 40, is charged with complicity in a series of armed hold-ups and heists, amongst them the successful HSBC Balzan hold-up in 2007, and the botched attempts at the HSBC headquarters in June 2010 and at Gold Market jewellery, Attard in October 2010. He has been remanded in custody pending the start of criminal case.

In the compilation of evidence against him last week he was revealed to have a fixation with Sicilian mafia rituals and the lives of the Corleonese clan that came to dominate the cosa nostra in the 1990s. According to a police officer who became the star witness in the case against Gatt, the alleged 'crime boss' even carried out mafia initiation rites on him, by burning a holy picture in his hand.

Gatt’s interest in freemasonry was also displayed publicly on his Facebook status. Gatt even wore a ring that bore the traditional freemason’s square and compass symbol.

Most members of the breakway Grand Lodge – who include well-known entrepreneurs and even a Maltese diplomat – either declined to comment, or were simply unable to confirm any information on their relationship with David Gatt.

The Fenici, Abercorn and Mikiel Anton Vassalli (formerly Leinster) lodges formed their own Grand Lodge in December 2009 after protesting at what they felt was the “dictatorial way” of the SGLOM’s grand master, Anthony A. Pisani.

The three lodges were formally part of the Irish Constitution of lodges, which in 2004 joined the Hospitalliers and Count Roger of Normandy Lodges, to form the SGLOM. A member of the Fenici lodge who spoke to MaltaToday said the SGLOM lacked procedures to impeach the Grand Master “because there is no supreme council. We had no choice to remove ourselves.”

A spokesperson for the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta said the new lodge was irregular and its members had been expelled from the SGLOM. "Dr David Gatt, a member of this separated group was, as a direct result of such action, expelled from regular Freemasonry and has therefore no association whatsoever with the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta. Any transgressions that Dr David Gatt may be currently accused of are on no concern of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta," Roy Martin told MaltaToday.