Joseph Mifsud

[1] 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.

[15] In April 2016, Mifsud spoke at a Valdai Club panel in Moscow[citation needed] alongside Switzerland-based lawyer Stephan Roh.

[6] Roh, who has been associated with Russian oligarchs and who owns a 5% stake in Link Campus University,[6] has been described by George Papadopoulos's wife as Mifsud's partner, best friend, and funder.

[9][15] On 10 May 2016, Papadopoulos repeated the information to the Australian High Commissioner in London, Alexander Downer, who was accompanied by Australian diplomat Erika Thompson, that "the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs Clinton (and President Obama)."

[30] U.S. Attorney General William Barr and U.S. prosecutor John Durham met with Italian intelligence officials in Rome in late September 2019 to learn more about Mifsud and his contacts.

[32][33] Mifsud's passport and wallet were found on 5 August 2017, in Câmara de Lobos, Portugal, although the Maltese government was not informed until in October 2019.

[34][35] He spoke to his girlfriend on 31 October 2017, the day before an Italian newspaper revealed that the "professor" referred to in news reports about Papadopoulos was Mifsud; as of 27 February 2018, she had not heard from him again.

[36] Photographic evidence showed that Mifsud was in Switzerland on 21 May 2018;[37] he lived in Link Campus University housing until the summer of that year.

[39] As of 18 May 2023 the Italian newspaper La Notizia reported Mifsud's whereabouts were still unknown following his disappearance into thin air on 31 October 2017.

Mifsud appeared in an October 2017 photo with then British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, when attending a Brexit event at the London School of Diplomacy.