Mifsud is from Malta. He received a Phd from Queen’s University, Belfast in 1995, on how to reform primary school education, and then served as an assistant to a Maltese foreign minister, which I suppose gave him a little experience of diplomacy. In 2008, he popped up at the EMUNI University in Slovenia. It may not be Europe’s most distinguished academic institution, but it was too distinguished for Mifsud. The Times of Malta reported he left in haste after pocketing €39,000 in expenses, including an impressive €13,767 for mobile calls.
Where would a man like this head to? Why, dear old London town, of course, where half the oligarchs, thieves, spies, spivs and shits on the planet are welcomed. Mifsud set up the “London Academy of Diplomacy” and boasted to the Washington Diplomat that it was “one of the best diplomatic academies in the world”.
...
Undeterred by the rickety surroundings, Mifsud quickly found institutions ready to boost his credentials. The University of East Anglia took him on in 2011 and claimed he was a professor, although no one can see how he earned the title. In 2016, he moved to Stirling University, which was delighted that he flew “the University of Stirling flag” at “high-profile” meetings with Putin. You have to have encountered the fierce jealousy with which academics guard their specialisms to realise how unusual it is for two universities to treat Mifsud as an authority on international diplomacy when what expertise he possessed was on early years education.
...
I don’t know how the Mifsud affair will end. But I do know this. When we talk of tax havens laundering dirty money, we should think of London and New York as well as the Virgin Islands and Bermuda. When we talk of politicians who doff the cap to Putin, we should think of the Brexit right and Labour left as well as the dictators running central Asian republics. And perhaps, when we talk of spies, we will soon need to think less of cruel men extracting secrets from terrified victims and more of podgy “professors” pushing at open doors.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/20/why-has-britain-given-such-a-warm-welcome-to-this-shadowy-professor
Maltese Official Raises Profile Of U.K. Diplomacy Academy
http://www.washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11246:maltese-official-raises-profile-of-uk-diplomacy-academy&catid=1526:january-2015&Itemid=551t
My guess would be that he was an MI6 asset, but possibly a double agent. If MI6, he's probably been given a new identity. Where is Steele these days?
= new reply since forum marked as read
