MEPs demand probe on Malta visa ‘racket’

MEPs are collecting signatures to force the European Commission to investigate allegations that an official at the office of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was running a visa racket. Transcripts of Libyans claiming they bought visas from Neville Gafà were submitted in court early last month. Ivan Grech Mintoff, who exhibited the transcripts and also made a series of allegations when testifying in court, told The Sunday Times of Malta he had met with MEPs from opposing political camps to discuss what was being referred to in the halls of Brussels as the ‘Mintoff report’. Read: Brussels asked to probe Malta's Schengen 'visa racket' “They are concerned about what could be going on here and want an investigation to ensure our borders are adequately protected,” he said. The Commission has already been asked to probe the allegations by MEP Ana Gomes, who wrote to vice president Frans Timmermans urging him to ensure the procedures to grant visas to third-country nationals were followed and to “punish exemplarily those found involved in engineering any kind of criminal activity and breaches of the Schengen visa system”. “This racket case may harm the security of all European citizens and...