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The murder of journalist Daphne Caruahua Galizia deeply affected the man who blew up the Panama Papers scandal, according to an interview published by a German media house on Friday.
The interview with the whistleblower, who was identified only as “John Doe” and whose gender was not specified, was written by Frederik Obermeier and Bastian Obermeier – the two journalists who obtained the original documents related to the scandal – and published by Spiegel International.
This is the first interview with the person who in 2015 contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and leaked more than 2.6 terabytes of secrets from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the most important service providers in the global business of offshore companies.
The leak soon became known as the Panama Papers and rocked the political world in many countries – including Malta, where the Prime Minister’s then chief of staff Keith Schembri and Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi were found to have offshore companies.
During the interview, the whistleblower was asked if they fear that they will ever be subject to retaliation from regimes that their leaks have negatively affected – such as the Russian regime.
“It’s a risk I live with, given that the Russian government has expressed the fact that they want me dead. Before Russia Today’s media presence was curtailed due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, it aired a two-part docu-drama The Panama Papers featuring a John Doe character who suffered a head injury caused by torture during the opening credits , after which a cartoon boat floats through the pool of his blood as if it were the Panama Canal. As weird and tacky as it was, it wasn’t subtle,” the whistleblower said.
“We have seen others with ties to offshore accounts and tax justice resort to murder, as in the tragedies involving Daphne Caruana Galizia and Jan Kuciak,” they added.
Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb attack on October 16, 2017, with business magnate Jorgen Fenech facing charges of masterminding the murder. Meanwhile, Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak was murdered in his home together with his fiancee Martina Kusnirova on February 21, 2018.
“Their deaths have affected me deeply and I call on the European Union to bring justice to Daphne and Jan and their families. And to ensure the rule of law in Malta, one of Mossack Fonseca’s former jurisdictions,” the whistleblower said.
Neither Schembri nor Mizzi faced prosecution for what was revealed in the Panama Papers, with it later revealed that their companies had named Jorgen Fenech’s company 17 Black as a target client from whom they would receive the equivalent of €5000 every day.
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