Joseph Mifsud

For the Maltese footballer, see Josef Mifsud.

Joseph Mifsud
Born	1960 (1960) Malta
Disappeared	6 November 2017 (aged ) Rome, Italy
Nationality	Maltese
Education	University of Malta (BA) University of Padua (MA) Queen's University Belfast (PhD)

Joseph Mifsud (born 1960) is a Maltese academic, with reportedly high level connections to the Russian government. In 2016, he became involved with George Papadopoulos, an advisor to the Donald Trump presidential campaign, and was later accused of being a link between that campaign and Russia. In 2018, he was described as missing, and an Italian court listed his location as "residence unknown".

Education

Mifsud holds a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Malta (1982) and a master's degree in education from the University of Padua (1989). He was awarded a PhD in 1995 from Queen's University Belfast; his thesis was titled "Managing educational reform: a comparative approach from Malta (and Northern Ireland); a headteachers' perspective".

Career

From 2006 to 2008, Mifsud served as the chef de cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malta. He later became a principal in the London Centre of International Law Practice. In 2008, he was named President of the Euro-Mediterranean University of Slovenia (EMUNI). He was a professorial teaching fellow at the University of Stirling in Scotland, as well as director of the London Academy of Diplomacy, where he served as director from 2012 until it closed in 2016. The academy was partnered with the University of Stirling. He has also served as president of the University Consortium of the Province of Agrigento in Sicily; in September 2018, an Italian court ordered him to repay the Consortium 49,000 euros ($56,700) in overpayments.

In a 2017 interview, he claimed to be a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), although the ECFR website in 2018 did not list him as a member. He regularly attended meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, backed by the Kremlin and attended by Vladimir Putin. According to a BBC report, Mifsud was in Moscow in April 2016 to speak on a panel run by the Valdai Club alongside Dr. Stephan Roh, a German multimillionaire lawyer and investor described as a "wheeler-dealer" by the BBC Newsnight program. Roh, Mifsud's former employer, could not be reached for comment by the BBC and has since attempted to erase links between the two men on his company website. Another speaker at the Valdai Club was Ivan Timofeev, who works for a think tank close to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whom Mifsud subsequently introduced to Papadopoulos via email. Mifsud reportedly claimed to his former girlfriend that he was friends with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Mifsud himself denied having any contact with the Russian government, saying "I am an academic, I do not even speak Russian."

Connection to George Papadopoulos

In March 2016, shortly after Papadopoulos was named as a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, Mifsud met Papadopoulos in Rome. They later met in London, where Mifsud allegedly introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman that he falsely claimed was Putin's niece; Mifsud has denied the report. At a meeting in April, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had learned the Russians were in possession of thousands of emails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos allegedly repeated the information to an Australian diplomat in London, Alexander Downer, who later reported to American authorities that Papadopoulos had apparently known about Russia's theft of emails from Democratic sources before it was publicly reported. Papopoulos has since publicly denied any recollection of this topic with Downer. The FBI then launched an investigation into possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign.

According to Mifsud, he was interviewed by the FBI in February 2017 while visiting the United States to speak at a conference. The FBI has not confirmed that they interviewed him, but he is listed as a featured speaker at the February 2017 national meeting of Global Ties, an event sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Mifsud left the United States on 11 February 2017. Prosecutors with the investigation into Russian interference in the election suggested, in a 17 August 2018 sentencing memorandum for Papadopoulos, that they might have wanted to challenge, detain, or arrest Mifsud if Papadopoulos had told the truth about their interactions.

Connection to Stephan Roh

Stephan Roh, a Russian-speaking German lawyer and multimillionaire with close ties to Russia, has worked alongside Mifsud for years. Papadopoulos's wife, who briefly worked for Mifsud, has described Roh as Mifsud's lawyer, best friend, and funder. Roh owns multiple businesses, many headquartered in Moscow or Cyprus; he also co-owns Link University, where Mifsud taught. Roh was detained and questioned by investigators on Robert Mueller's Special Counsel team in October 2017.

Missing report

According to a filing in a U.S. federal court in the case Democratic National Committee v. Russian Federation in September 2018, Mifsud "is missing and may be deceased". Mifsud's whereabouts were unknown and he could not be served with the complaint. He spoke to his girlfriend on 31 October 2017. The next day an Italian newspaper revealed that the "professor" referred to in news reports about Papadopoulos was Mifsud, and she has not heard from him since then. According to CNN, he has "gone to ground" and was last seen on 6 November 2017 at Link University, a private university in Rome where he was teaching at the time. In September 2018, an Italian court described his location as "residence unknown".

In September 2018, a few days after the DNC filing, his associate Stephan Roh told The Daily Caller that he got an indirect message from "really good sources" indicating that Mifsud is alive and living under a new identity.

See also

• Trump campaign–Russian meetings#George Papadopoulous meetings