A PROFESSOR who allegedly offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton to the Trump campaign on behalf of the Kremlin is “missing and may be dead,” according to court papers.

Joseph Mifsud, 57, who worked at the University of Stirling until last year, is accused of being a link between the US President’s election campaign and Russia.

Last week, the Malta-born academic was named in papers filed with a New York court by the Democratic National Committee as part of their lawsuit relating to alleged interference in the 2016 race.

However, the documents revealed Mifsud was the only defendant who had not been served with the complaint because he “is missing and may be deceased.”

The others in the case include Russia, the Trump campaign and whistle-blowing organisation Wikileaks.

Mifsud’s Ukrainian-based fiance, who gave birth to his daughter earlier this year, has reportedly not heard for him in months.

The professor previously denied being a Russian asset, saying: “Secret agent! I never got a penny from the Russians. My conscience is clean.”

Federal indictments allege Mifsud offered to use his “substantial connections with Russian government officials” to supply information about Democratic candidate Clinton to the Trump team.

In 2007, the academic left his job at the University of Malta after being accused of fiddling £34,320 worth of expenses.

Last week, George Papadopoulos, 31, who Mifsud allegedly made the offer to supply dirt on Clinton, was jailed for 14 days for lying to the FBI during its probe into election meddling.

Papadopoulos served as a foreign policy adviser to the US President's campaign.

He was the first to plead guilty in Mueller's probe and is now the first Trump adviser to be sentenced.

His case was also the first to detail a member of the Trump campaign having knowledge of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election while it was ongoing.

According to an indictment handed up this summer, Russian spies had stolen emails from Clinton's campaign by April 2016.

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That was the same month Papadopoulos was told by Mifsud that Kremlin officials had told him they had "dirt" on Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails".

Papadopoulos later used his connections with the Maltese professor and other Russian nationals in an attempt to broker a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Putin.

He admitted last year to lying to the FBI about those contacts.