Bernard Grech accused Robert Abela Sunday of being “complicit” in the Vitals scandal, claiming the Prime Minister knew the deal was corrupt for at least three years and failed to act on it. 

The Opposition leader was addressing a political activity in Mellieħa, where he praised media houses for choosing to reveal the details of the process verbal of the Vitals magisterial inquiry. 

The Sunday Times of Malta reported extensively on how investigators who combed through the deal which saw the privatisation of three state hospitals found signs of crime everywhere they looked. 

The newspaper also details how Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi are suspected of planning to secretly own a company that exclusively supplied these hospitals with medicine and medical equipment.  

Referring to the inquiry on Sunday, Grech said Abela has been attacking the judiciary and the media intently because he did not want the public to know what the content of the inquiry found. Nevertheless, the truth has been outed, he said.

“Today we found out that Abela, while he was already prime minister, has known for at least three years that the deal was fraudulent because one of the people accused had told him about it,” Grech claimed. 

“We know - black on white - that someone informed him that there was fraud. That’s why he didn’t want you to find out what’s in the inquiry, but today we know that he was complicit”. 

Abela, Grech continued, had made a “pact with the devil” to be made prime minister and the public was finally watching it unravel before its eyes because “there is no honour among thieves”. 

The more these deals unravel, the more we learn how detrimental they were to the public, Grech said. 

“With every word, this inquiry hammers home confirmation that this country has been overtaken by a criminal mafia establishment,” he said. 

“This is a prime minister who has been completely taken over. He threw you, your children and our country away to save himself. He wants to buy your vote so that after June 8 he can throw you away again,” Grech said, referring to the timing of tax rebates and announcement of new financial grants close to the election date. 

“This is why we know that you have had enough and that there are thousands who remain silent but cannot take it anymore,” he added, noting that even staunch Labour supporters were telling him they were fed up with the PM’s behaviour. 

Attendees at Sunday's Mellieħa rally. Photo: PN

Claims of a trap are ‘shameful lie’

During his rally, Grech again addressed Abela’s claim that the PN was setting a “trap” for Labour supporters who intended to turn up outside court to support Joseph Muscat on Tuesday. 

Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi are to appear in court to face charges of corruption, money laundering and criminal association, among other serious crimes, related to the hospitals' deal. 

Dredging up Labour’s history of political violence, Grech said it was “shameful” for the PM to make such claims, when historically it has been the PN and its supporters who suffered violence at their hands.

“Are you trying to make sure that trouble happens and then try to blame us for it,” Grech said. 

“You killed Raymond Caruana,” he continued, raising his voice to agitation, as the crowd responded with angry shouting. 

“It was the PN who suffered tear gas, who were beaten and arrested for nothing while Labour was in government.”

“It was under your party that the police and the AFM beat us and shot at us because we wanted to hold a mass meeting in Żejtun. Be ashamed if you even remember how to.” 

The PN’s government was the one that ended political violence once and for all, he continued, striving for peace and to build bridges, even appointing Abela’s father George as president. 

Abela has the gall to accuse the PN of fomenting violence when the assassination of Daphne Caruana had happened under Joseph Muscat’s watch, he added.

The trap accusation is a “total fabrication” because despite Abela’s so-called concern he had not even bothered to go to the police with his information, Grech said. 

“When you uttered this lie I asked you to go to the police. If you were a man of integrity and worthy of the office you hold, you would have done it to protect your citizens,” he said. 

“Now it has been five days since I asked him to go to the Police Commissioner, and you know what, he hasn’t gone, because either he knows that he lied or he has no faith in the Police Commissioner.” 

“He obviously didn’t go because he knows he’s lying,” Grech added with finality.