Robert Abela has slammed court experts who worked on a criminal probe into corruption in the hospitals privatisation deal.

Speaking at a political activity on Sunday, the prime minister claimed the “supposed experts” are refusing to testify in court following the conclusion of an €11 million magisterial inquiry.

The inquiry’s findings led to criminal charges against Abela’s predecessor Joseph Muscat and a slew of government officials. Muscat denies wrongdoing.

On Sunday, Abela said the proposed amendments to the way these inquiries are conducted will help rein in “uncontrolled spending” on foreign experts.

He added that the changes - which have been roundly criticised by the Opposition and civil society - will introduce more accountability in inquiries. The prime minister noted that expenses for court experts will now have to be signed off on by the chief justice.

The government’s Bill will make it more difficult for ordinary citizens to trigger inquiries such as the Vitals one, which came from a request by the rule of law NGO Repubblika.

Abela said the changes would only impact a very small portion of inquiries, as only 25 requests had been made by citizens over the past eight years when compared to the 8,000 inquiries conducted during the same period.

He said the majority of those inquiry requests came from the “same group” of people, in reference to Repubblika and lawyer Jason Azzopardi.

The prime minister denied that the changes were designed to protect politicians.

“We remain open to investigations until our dying breath as we removed the time-barring on corruption in 2013.”

Abela said the government had, however, failed to anticipate how inquiries would be used to attack “loyal servants” of the state.

Three former permanent secretaries are among those facing charges following the Vitals inquiry. Abela has since announced that the government will "protect" civil servants from being hauled to court. 

The prime minister said innocent people were being made to spend years waiting for the truth to finally emerge due to the actions of “vindictive” people.

“Their interest is not justice, but seeing people charged in court, even if they are innocent. If they know someone is innocent, they will enjoy it even more. They have a defect worse than hate, which is jealousy,” Abela said.

He warned that those in Opposition are dangerous enough as is, let alone if they are given power.

“Once a red line is crossed, it will only be crossed once. We will fight against their lies, we will not let them destroy anyone else,” Abela declared.

Abela repeated claims PN MP Karol Aquilina “laughed” when Labour backbencher Camela Abela broke down in tears after recalling in parliament how Jason Azzopardi had made defamatory claims implicating him in a bank heist. Aquilina denies the claim. 

The prime minister further claimed that the PN’s blanket opposition to the magisterial inquiry changes meant it was against giving more rights to victims.

Abela said as part of the proposed bill, victims will have the right to receive regular updates during the course of an inquiry.