Joseph Muscat has welcomed the prospect of an inquiry into Panama company Egrant being re-examined, saying it would give him a chance to “prove the conspiracy theorists wrong once again”.

In a right of reply sent to Times of Malta on Tuesday morning through his lawyer Charlon Gouder, Muscat said he had nothing to hide.

“There are those who might argue that now the Egrant case should be reopened,” the former prime minister said.  

“As I said numerous times when such a possibility was floated, including by the said court experts who salivated at the idea of getting paid even more public funds: Make my day!

“I have nothing to hide and will only take further satisfaction in proving the conspiracy theorists wrong once again.”

Muscat was responding to a Times of Malta article which noted that a court expert he wants criminally prosecuted had played a major role in the 2018 Egrant inquiry.

That probe was requested by Muscat himself and centred on allegations that the offshore company was secretly owned by his wife, Michelle.

The inquiry found no proof of that and was unable to establish who owned the company. It concluded that signatures related to the firm were falsified and that the testimony of key witnesses, most notably that of former Pilatus Bank employee Maria Efimova, contained some significant discrepancies.

One of the court experts who worked on the probe, Miroslava Milenovic, also played a key role in a separate probe into the hospitals concession signed by Muscat’s government, which was annulled last year on the basis of fraud.

That probe led to criminal charges against Muscat and others. They all deny accusations.

Muscat and other defendants last week asked the police to investigate Milenovic because she was listed as a “forensic accountant” in the Vitals probe but did not hold an accountancy warrant.

Milenovic was also described as a “forensic accountant” in the Egrant inquiry.

In his statement on Tuesday, Muscat said he was precluded from commenting on his ongoing criminal case due to a court order to that effect.

However, he argued that in the Egrant case, the work of court experts was just one of the inputs the then-magistrate leading the probe took into account.

The magistrate “confronted versions, asked questions, made his own assessments and came up with his own report”, Muscat argued.

“Secondly, given that I was the victim in the Egrant frame-up, I never had the opportunity to confront Ms Milenovic in court,” he added.

Muscat said he would delight in disproving the Egrant allegations a second time. 

The former prime minister made similar statements in a July 2023, interview, when he dared critics to request a second Egrant inquiry but warned them he would then sue them when the probe cleared him. 

“A good boxer has to be able to take as many punches as he can give. But I will then be punching back," Muscat said at the time.