Police chief says In-Nazzjon misinterpreting comments on Panama investigation

The Commissioner of Police Lawrence Cutajar has said that the PN organ In-Nazzjon has misinterpreted comments he gave to Net TV programme Iswed Fuq l-Abjad, on an alleged police investigation dealing with the Panama Papers.

Cutajar reiterated that Article 112 of the police code precluded him from discussing specific cases in public, and said the PN organ had misinterpreted him when it reported that minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri, were under investigation.

The two men were revealed to have opened two secret offshore companies in Panama, using the offices of Mossack Fonseca, in the leak revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Cutajar said that, as stated by the police back on 24 March 2016, “no reasonable suspicion had resulted of a serious criminal action that could lead to a police investigation.”

The police chief – whom Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said would be sacked upon the PN’s election to power – said that the police corps should be allowed to carry out its work without any external pressure.

In-Nazzjon reported on Thursday that while Cutajar had said he could not comment on the alleged investigation, “this means Mizzi and Schembri are suspects and investigated or could be arraigned in court.”

The Attorney General, who presides the board of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, has also refused to confirm ether an investigation into the Panama Papers is indeed ongoing or finalised.

In a reaction, the PN said that Cutajar was taking back his statement on TV.

The PN said: “The police commissioner said he could give no details about ‘anyone arrested or reasonably suspected of having committed a crime’… this means that Mizzi and Schembri were being considered as suspects, possibly liable to prosecution.”

The PN said it had “no doubt that the Commissioner had been given a talking-to from Castille”, and said Cutajar’s harking back to a 2016 statement did not take into consideration the fact that the details of the Panama Papers had been published by the ICIJ a month later in April 2016, and the emails showing that a search had been undertaken for an international bank account for the Mizzi and Schembri companies.

“It is without doubt that the Maltese people have lost their faith in the government, but also in the police corps,” the PN said.