A “damning” report by the anti-money laundering agency FIAU that concludes investigations should start against Minister Konrad Mizzi has been buried, MEP David Casa said.

“I am in possession of a damning FIAU report that concludes that criminal investigations should start against Mizzi on alleged money laundering and the possible existence of money derived from crime. I know the report has been ready since at least March this year,” said the Nationalist Party’s Head of Delegation in the European Parliament.

Casa stressed that he has verified the authenticity of the report, which remains at the FIAU under lock and key. “This is cast-iron evidence of the collapse of the rule of law and the political capture of yet another institution, if ever any more evidence was still necessary,” the MEP added.

The fact that the FIAU is led by the Attorney General Dr Peter Grech and by the Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta, who is married to Minister Justyne Caruana, shows just how much Malta’s institutions have become pawns in the hands of the Government.

“They have become spineless, powerless and useless…during a meeting with a delegation of MEPs earlier, FIAU representatives lied about the status of this report by calling it merely a ‘working document’ when they know very well that the report has been concluded for several months,” Casa said.

Apart from reaching damning conclusions in relation to Mizzi, the report also reaches other damning conclusions in relation to other people, companies, financial intermediaries and a bank, who have been known to be involved in the shady dealings of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle, according to the statement.

Casa said that because of the seriousness of the revelations, as well as the attempt to conceal the findings for so long, he is calling on the FIAU and, in particularly, its Chairman, Peter Grech, who is also the AG, on Finance Minister Edward Scicluna who is politically responsible for FIAU and on the Prime Minister to immediately publish this FIAU report, start the necessary criminal action against Mizzi, and immediately assume political responsibility for their failure to take action earlier.

“I am making it clear that should no action be taken, I will be left with no other alternative but to take the matter into my own hands to ensure that the wheels of justice are set into motion. The fact that this report had to reach me in order for its damning conclusions to be brought to light shows the extent of the decline of the rule of law under Muscat – a decline that is causing untold damage to our country,” the MEP said.

Casa was critical of Muscat who has “vehemently defended, retained and promoted (Chief of Staff) Keith Schembri and Mizzi for the past 18 months, which shows just how much he is was in cahoots with them”.

After the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the country can no longer be complacent in the face of impunity, Casa said.