Updated - Adds PL reaction - PN General Secretary Paul Borg Olivier told a press conference this afternoon that the party stood by its claim that it was Joseph Muscat who had given the PN indications in 2008 that the PL was about to target Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on the Mistra affair.

He said that his move had effectively pulled the carpet on then Labour leader Alfred Sant.

Dr Borg Olivier showed a clip taken on February 25, 2008, where, he said, Dr Muscat had warned of the attacks about to be waged by the Labour Party. Dr Muscat had then, in a conversation, passed on the information about the Mistra campaign.

Dr Borg Olivier recalled that in June 2008 then PN General Secretary Joe Saliba had revealed in The Sunday Times how Dr Muscat revealed the information in a conversation. At the time, Dr Muscat made no denial. He was only doing so now.

The PN General Secretary added that recent media comments by Dr Sant also showed that information given to the PL about Mistra had not come from the Nationalist Party, as the PL was now claiming. Jason Micallef, then PL General Secretary, was also on record as saying that the information to the PL had not come from the PN.

The issue now was not Mistra itself, Dr Paul Borg Olivier said, but how Dr Muscat was now trying to hide his actions.

PL REACTION

In a reaction, the PL said Dr Borg Olivier's press conference was a ridiculous attempt to deceive.

Only Dr Borg Olivier could somehow think that Dr Muscat in his official capacity could leak such information on national TV days before the election. 

It would be better for Dr Borg Olivier to investigate who really leaked the information in 2008, somebody who was close to the prime minister, the PL said.