Updated 7pm with Silvio Grixti's FB post
Labour MP Silvio Grixti has resigned from parliament after being interrogated by the police over an investigation into irregular medical sick notes.
Grixti was recently questioned by the police’s Financial Crimes Investigation Department and released on police bail, Times of Malta is informed.
Sources privy to details of the investigation said police are looking into sick notes and other documents that were signed by the doctor which may have been fraudulent or irregular.
He is currently on police bail.
Grixti submitted his resignation on Monday morning.
Lawyer Franco Debono, who is representing Grixti, said his client has no comment to make. The former MP is also being represented by lawyer Arthur Azzopardi, who later on Monday also said he had no comment to make.
Later on Monday, he told his Facebook followers he had resigned from parliament as his priorities went beyond political life.
"I do not want to occupy a parliamentary seat at a time when I will not be focused 100% on representing my constituents and patients," he said.
The Labour MP was elected for the first time in the 2017 general election on the third district.
Another medical doctor in parliament, PN MP Stephen Spiteri, is facing a medical council probe after he was accused of issuing medical certificates to patients he had not seen. Spiteri denied those claims.
PN: Government in 'total collapse'
News of Grixti's resignation leaked just as his fellow backbench MP, Ian Castaldi Paris, announced that he would not be contesting the next general election. Castaldi Paris made the announcement after Times of Malta revealed he owed €300,000 in unpaid taxes and fines.
Opposition leader Bernard Grech described those two events - as well as the persisting scandal surrounding Education Minister Justyne Caruana - as a "total collapse of Robert Abela's government" and said voters deserved better.
"This is government is causing irreparable harm to our country's name, while we should be battling the pandemic and focusing on generating new wealth," he said.