Aldo Cutajar, the government official and former Consul charged with money laundering, was interdicted for misappropriating government funds in 2004.

Cutajar, then an employee of the Arts and Culture Department, was given a two-year jail term, suspended for three years, after he admitted misappropriating Lm1,225. He was perpetually interdicted. The criminal code says that the interdicted will only lose their right to hold “any public office or employment”.

Cutajar, who was Malta’s Consul General in Shanghai from 2018 to 2019, was arraigned in court earlier today after police discovered €500,000 in cash during a raid on his home and a further $400,000 in a Dubai bank account.

Aldo Cutajar’s wife Isabel, was also charged with the same offences. Both pleaded not guilty.

Cutajar is the brother of Civil Service Head Mario Cutajar.

Cutajar was appointed to the role in May 2018, a year after Sai Mizzi, the wife of controversial former Minister Konrad Mizzi, stepped down from the role.

Sai Mizzi would have earned €558,000 from taxpayers’ money, on an average of €13,000 per month, by the time her contract officially expired in February 2017 following the six months extension granted her by the ministry.

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