An Italian newspaper has revealed that Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor who vanished from the public eye in late 2017, was hiding out last year in a rented flat in Rome for several months while being sought by an Italian court — and it was paid for by “Link International,” a company co-owned by Link Campus University.
“Mifsud lived in an apartment in Rome, in Via Cimarosa 3, owned by a Greek diplomat, and the rent was paid by Link Campus,” Il Foglio reported.
Link Campus University is where Mifsud in March of 2016 first met George Papadopoulos, about a week after he became a Trump foreign policy adviser. Papadopoulos now believes the university is “a training school for Western spies.”
G-Pap’s wife, Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos tweeted about the story on Thursday:
Mifsud was hiding in Roma – precisely in “Via Cimarosa n. 3” right next to the American Embassy in Rome
— Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos (@simonamangiante) April 18, 2019
Mifsud was hiding in Rome in an Apartment paid by Link Campus. The same company that now denies any affiliation with Mifsud. The Italian vice -minister of foreign affairs DEL RE, set up an investigative commette to make clarity. Time for answers pic.twitter.com/b2tPCQcSE3
— Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos (@simonamangiante) April 19, 2019
In March of 2016, Papadopoulos was working for an organization called the London Center for International Law Practice (LCILP), which he has since called a “shady front group for Western intelligence.” According to its website, LCILP is a think tank and consultancy firm that trains lawyers and others in the field of international law.
Mifsud was also affiliated with LCILP, according to the Mueller report, “but the encounter in Rome [at Link Campus University] was the first time that Papadopoulos met him.” Mifsud and Papadopoulos would go on to have several more meetings regarding Russia, as at the time, Russia was considered an important aspect of the campaign’s foreign policy, according to the Mueller report. In Late April of 2016, the Mueller report alleges that Mifsud went to Moscow, and upon his return, he informed Papadopoulos that the Russian government had obtained “dirt” Hillary Clinton.
The professor taught at Link Campus University, and according to Il Foglio, “owns 35 per cent of Link International, which Link Campus owns 55 per cent of (the remaining 10 per cent is owned by Roberto Lippi, domiciled in Bogotà, Colombia).”
On 31 October 2017, when the documents in the investigation file were made public, Mifsud was at Link Campus coordinating joint projects between the Italian university and the Lomonosov University in Moscow. Mifsud disappeared the day after and has not answered emails or phone calls since.
His name has also disappeared from the website of the organisations he has been affiliated with. He is currently being sought by the Americans, the Russians and an Italian court. But nobody knows where Mifsud actually is. Link Campus might know but is unwilling to say.
Il Foglio reports that while he was in hiding, Mifsud lived in an apartment in Rome owned by a Greek diplomat and that Link Campus paid the rent.
Il Foglio spoke with several of Mifsud’s former neighbours and understands that he moved in when he went underground. The rental contract expired last July or August and was registered to “Link International”: a company co-owned by Link Campus, with 30 employees and no financial statements available.
According to Il Foglio, the university has repeatedly claimed that it ended its relationship with Mifsud in 2008 and resumed it later when he was given the position of “visiting professor for 2017–2018.” But Mifsud never actually held any lectures and his contract was terminated after his role in the RussiaGate investigation came to light. The university reportedly said Mifsud ended all contact with the university after November 2017.
“The university has no information on his whereabouts,” Prof. Vincenzo Scotti, the president of Link Campus University, told Il Foglio.
“This assertion is incomplete, to put it mildly,” the paper responded. According to Il Foglio’s investigation, Mifsud played a pivotal role in creating Link’s international network.
“We now also know that Mifsud is one of Link Campus’ business partners and lived in a flat paid by the university – all the while being sought after by an Italian court,” Il Figlio reported.
The paper added: “The name of the university keeps re-surfacing, and the answers provided by its senior staff are too vague to safely assert that it has nothing to do with this international intrigue.”
The book “The Faking of Russia-gate” is co-written by Swiss lawyer Stephan Roh, who owns 5 per cent of GEM (the company which manages Link Campus) and is Mifsud’s lawyer. Roh writes that he spoke to Mifsud over the phone on the “advice of the professor’s friends” on 13 January 2018, while visiting Link’s main campus in Casale San Pio V, in Rome.
In a conversation-interview reported in the book, Mifsud rejects all the accusations. When asked about why he disappeared, Mifsud said that “the head of the Italian secret services contacted the president of Link Campus, Vincenzo Scotti, and recommended that the Professor shall disappear and stay for some time in a safe locaton”.
The authors write that the “Professor and his friends feared for his life”. It is unclear why the Italian secret services hid Mifsud and why they asked for Scotti’s help. Everyone can make their own speculations. But the important issue is that, according to a Link shareholder, who also happens to be Mifsud’s lawyer, the university played an active role in the disappearance of the Maltese professor, as part of an operation that has more to do with secret services than with academia.
Mifsud is painted in the Mueller report as a Maltese national who maintained various Russian contacts while living in London. (Mifsud also worked as a professor at the London Academy of Diplomacy in London.)
The question remains: who was was he ultimately working for — the Russians or Western intelligence agencies?
Investigative journalist Lee Smith reported at RealClearInvestigations that there is no evidence to support the claim that Mifsud is/was a Russian spy. “Although Mifsud has traveled many times to Russia and has contacts with Russian academics, his closest public ties are to Western governments, politicians, and institutions, including the CIA, FBI and British intelligence services,” he wrote.
Papadopoulos now believes the Obama administration spied on him because of his links to Israel.
Let’s summarize the Mueller report:
He states that warrants were targeted at me during my time before and after I joined the campaign because of my “high level connections to Israel.”
Translation: Obama illicitly spied on me with a FISA because I was a top energy advisor.
— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) April 18, 2019
Facts: an FBI asset named Joseph Mifsud dropped unsolicited info in my lap about “Russians having Clinton’s emails.” I did nothing with this info. Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper and others were spying on me because of my ties to the Israeli energy business. Declass transcripts!
— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) April 18, 2019
.@GeorgePapa19 'impressed' and 'shocked' that #Mueller told the truth about him in report. @foxandfriends pic.twitter.com/8hkOdgf0N7
— Brian Kilmeade (@kilmeade) April 19, 2019
Il Figlio ends its report on this note: “Whoever wants to solve the Russiagate enigma – whether they believe that Mifsud plotted with the Russians to help Trump or that he conspired with Western intelligence services to weaken Trump – should look for evidence at Link Campus, the small university presided over by Vincenzo Scotti.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member