the maltese professor was this man, joseph mifsud.r had began as an academic here in valletta, at the university of malta. he resigned in 2007 under something of a cloud. he then moved through a series of academic institutions, touting his expertise in diplomacy, presenting as an ambassador, but this is not true. maltese journalistjurgen balzan has checked out the facts. there's no evidence of him, of mifsud being an ambassador or deployed in some maltese foreign ministry office abroad. the man who never was an ambassador moved to the london academy of diplomacy in 2013; an obscure outfit whose degrees were awarded by the university of east anglia and the university of stirling. here he is with a russian ambassador, a real one, that is. so why would a minor academic working in british universities be of interest to the russians? he is a very typical kind of character in this world, on the fringes of academia, think—tankery and governments. he looks nonthreatening, he's a hanger on, he's at all the parties. he's a wannabe, not a real p

did they ask questions that seemed to try to ascertain, whether mifsud who's now missing, whether hetheir view potentially a russian asset? >> i think they were interested, absolutely, they had it already figured out. so at the stage that they talked with me, they wanted to know my connection if i introduced george to mif, and that was one of the biggest question mark and i helped them with the chronology of facts and i clarified that it was simply coincidence, but it makes perfect sense my why witness was so important. that's why i said it's really big to say no, i'm not going to testify because i don't think it's important. we don't know actually. >> i want you to stay with me, i'm going to bring in a legal analyst nick ackerman. i want to extend that offer to people who take their time to share with us. nick, your response to what we're learning? >> i think what we're learning is absolutely what you would expect from a prosecutor's office. what they're trying to do is put together the facts. she had information that supplemented or complemented what george popadopoulos was telling