“Will they call von der Leyen corrupt? Will they falsify signatures claiming her husband owns a company and accepted cash from the Azerbaijanis?” This was Joseph Muscat’s petulant whining when reacting to the news that a desperate European Union struck a deal with Ilham Aliyev.
Muscat is back to default mode – humiliating himself and wrecking what’s left of Malta’s reputation. Even after being forced out, Muscat keeps cropping up in the most cringe-worthy public appearances. Those are not comments worthy of a former prime minister. They are the comments of a petty, bitter man desperately trying to launder his reputation.
The EU’s decision to strike a deal with Aliyev for its gas made Muscat’s day. In his warped logic, von der Leyen’s deal somehow exonerates his own opaque and shady SOCAR arrangement. Muscat shoves the EU’s Azerbaijan memorandum into his critics’ faces as some sort of personal exoneration, a kind of laundromat for his filthy pact with Aliyev.
Muscat travelled to Baku with Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Kurt Farrugia without civil servants or local media. SOCAR got an 18-year exclusivity agreement to provide gas to Electrogas worth $1 billion. The anti-corruption organisation Global Witness highlighted major deficiencies in the tendering process, particularly its opacity.
So did the Auditor General, who found a lack of documentation leading him to question how such a lucrative agreement could be signed based on “ministerial direction”. That minister was Konrad Mizzi. And his “direction” cost Malta millions of euro. The Guardian reported that Malta was “losing money hand over fist”. It is estimated that Malta lost €40 million to SOCAR in one year.
In the meantime, Aliyev’s two daughters, Leyla and Arzu, became Pilatus Bank’s largest clients and the ultimate beneficial owners of several opaque offshore companies. Tale and Nijat Heydarov, the sons of Azerbaijan’s emergency minister, were also beneficial owners of other companies in the network.
Pilatus Bank was used to send $10 million of “suspicious” transactions to a mystery company in the 17 Black money trail. Lazr international, a UAE company, used Pilatus to transfer millions to a Seychelles company called Mayor Trans. Mayor Trans then wired $1.4 million to Yorgen Fenech’s 17 Black.
Joseph Muscat revealed it was Joe Debono Grech who had advised him that “countries will be queuing up to this state; Mintoff was insulted for opening the doors to China, but he was proven right, you do the same (with Azerbaijan), and this is what will happen”.
A report titled ‘European Values Bought and Sold’ documenting Azerbaijan’s sophisticated system of buying western politicians revealed how Azerbaijan laundered $3 billion doing so. That report states that “as early as January 2013, Debono Grech was suspected of receiving gifts while travelling to Azerbaijan”. Debono Grech denied receiving any gifts but finally admitted receiving “a silk carpet”.
Debono Grech visited Azerbaijan around 30 times. He repeatedly voted with Azerbaijan at the Council of Europe. He claimed “Azerbaijan is on the right track” while Baku imprisoned, tortured, blackmailed and murdered journalists and activists.
Elmar Huseynov, a journalist critical of Aliyev, was shot in the mouth, a gangland trademark of imposing silence. Khadijah Ismayilova, who uncovered Aliyev family corruption, was filmed by Aliyev’s secret services, and intimate footage of her with her boyfriend was used to silence her. When that failed, she was imprisoned for seven and a half years on trumped-up charges. When she received a Swedish award for “courage and tenacity in exposing corruption at the highest levels”, she couldn’t collect it as Aliyev banned her from travelling.
Amnesty International’s latest report on Azerbaijan states that “torture and other ill treatment remain widespread”. Politically motivated persecution and harassment of government critics continue unabated, and many of its victims remain imprisoned. Police violently break up peaceful rallies.
Opposition activist Tofig Yagoublu was hospitalised with serious injuries inflicted by the police. Sadar Askerov was detained, beaten and released after being forced to apologise for a post criticising local authorities. Other bloggers have been sentenced to years’ imprisonment for “defamation”.
Opposition activist Niyameddin Ahmedov was sentenced to 13 years on politically motivated charges. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Azerbaijan arbitrarily denied registration to 25 NGOs in violation of the right to freedom of association. Another ECtHR ruling found that the authorities had frozen bank accounts and imposed travel bans to paralyse NGOs’ human rights work.
Despite all this, Joseph Muscat, as a member of an Azerbaijani government-funded lobby group, signed a grovelling letter to Aliyev. “We extend our congratulations to your excellency as we reflect on the enormous progress Azerbaijan has made,” it read. “We have noted with appreciation the decisive steps taken by your government under your leadership. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to you, Mr President”.
No wonder Muscat hit it off with Aliyev. Both were declared Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption by the OCCRP. Muscat’s fawning over Aliyev exposes a rotten amoral logic. Debono Grech’s advice to Muscat reveals that those attitudes are deeply entrenched and longstanding within Labour.
Debono Grech highlighted how other countries followed Mintoff’s lead in courting China. That fact makes China no less oppressive, autocratic or brutal in suppressing basic freedoms. Neither does the EU’s accord with Aliyev make Azerbaijan less abusive of basic human rights.
It certainly doesn’t make Muscat’s deal with Aliyev smell cleaner. And it definitely doesn’t make Muscat any less toxic.
That matters little to Muscat, who maintained a private Whatsapp group with Yorgen Fenech, who invited Fenech to his birthday bash and accepted his lavish gifts, who travelled with him to Italy to attend Ali Sadr Hasheminejad’s wedding, or who appointed Adrian Hillman to the AUM board. Muscat presided over Vitals, Electrogas, AUM, SOCAR, Mozura, DB’s ITS and other rotten deals.
He’s not fussed about decency. The only thing he’s interested in now is his own survival – and he’ll clutch at any straw.
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Malta graduated
I honestly wonder how many Maltese would really trade places with the reputation of Joseph Muscat or one of his gang?
When I imagine that I have to constantly fear that everything will come out, that people on the street will shout at me to f___ off or even spit at me in contempt,
that fingers will be pointed at my children, that my children are not allowed to play with them or even come home with bruises.
No, I would never want to change places with this subjects.
Von Der Leyen met the Azerbaijani in the presence of the press not leaving the press behind on purpose by people NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.
Joseph Muscat will go down in history for having introduced greed, corruption and a general downward dive of the moral principles that our ancestors and forefathers had passed on to us. Money is the new god.
Again a great article that only people of goodwill will, unfortunately appreciate. The rot is too deep to cure.
I remember Joseph Muskats last performance at an EU meeting: he was so toxic, everyone ignored him as if he was air.
The PL then played clips from the previous year in deepest contempt.
Oh, how ridiculous that was! – Everyone knew.
Joseph Muscat earned a red clown nose.
THE DISGRACED ONE WILL FOREVER BE REMEMBERED AS
MALTA’S WORST PM AFTER THE GREAT DICTATOR DOM
MINTOFF.
A whinging thief who has disgraced Malta and his whole family and lives in dread of
incarceration with his accomplices.
He’s not been incarcerated – precisely because of his well-placed accomplices.
As usual bla bla, Labour always in the wrong, and now EU is ok with Aliyev, you should grow up Mr. Cassar
Kevin Cassar seems to be stuck in a rut where everything, absolutely everything is viewed from the lens of Joseph Muscat, it’s becoming a microcosm of the general inability of PN to move on to subjects relevant to Maltese, I used to be Nationalist, never liked JM, but really this reeks of detachment and obsession, it would be nice to read something topical.
Joseph Muscat has not gone away. He is still here. He?s still part of the Labour party. And he?s still draining your money. Mr Duca is paying for Joseph Muscat?s office use at Sa Maison(like the rest of us) and doesn?t even know how much he?s still paying for it because Robert Abela won?t tell us. Mr Duca is still paying money into Technoline?s pockets for every glove, syringe,needle, gauze swab used in Karin Grech or Gozo General – that money is really going to Ram Tumuluri and Shaukat Ali and heaven knows to who else, thanks to Muscat. Mr Duca is still being ripped of thanks to JM. Some of us don?t like being ripped off. Some of us expect justice. Others have an interest in forgetting Joseph Muscat. We?ve heard this before – you view everything through the lens of Caruana Galizia, through the lens of JM, through the lens of Labour. We understand it?s inconvenient for some to see others continue to push for justice. And it?s certainly not detachment. Detachment is when you?re still being ripped off, and conveniently look away. Detachment is when you?re burdened with a debt of 9 billion, the bulk of which accumulated by one man?s dirty deals – and you think insisting on redress is not ?topical?. Of course Mr Duca is not obliged to read my column.
And what should you do than?
The Eu -Azeri gas supply deal.
In fact the Trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP) — coming from Baku — started supplying gas to Italy on 30 Dec. 2020 i.e. 19 months ago. Why Italy, in its search to substitute Russian gas has not mentioned this source I do not know. One other fact: shareholders of the TAP are BP (20%0, Fluxys (19%), Enagas(16%), Axpo(5%). SOCAR has 20%. So Ursula Von Der Leyen was only negotiating an increase in TAP flow and not anything ne, quite apart from the fact that as you say it was openly done. No shenanigans like deflecting head of PBS to Paris while Muscat and his three musketeers went to Baku were involved.
On the SOCAR deal to supply Electrogas with LNG there was a further point to make. SOCAR was purchasing LNG from the Shell-Abu Dhabi terminal in the Gulf at market prices and selling it to Electrogas at an agreed fixed price. Now from the start of the LNG flow in late 2015 to middle of 2020, that fixed (Electrogas) price was anywhere between 50% to 500% above market price. So SOCAR, a shareholder in Electrogas was milking Electrogas very heavily. Where that money went is not known but might be guessed. In any case, Electrogas when faced with payment of customs duties on the imported gas, got its guardian ängel Konrad Mizzi .(and Joseph Muscat) to grant it a permanent reprieve. So in the end. the local taxpayer was keeping una sperlonga di ladri, wallowing in money. .