Joseph Muscat insisted on Wednesday that the criminal case against him over the Vitals hospitals deal was based on hearsay, lies and assumptions.  

The case against him was based only on one person's testimony, an Indian man who claimed to have heard someone else make assertions about him, the former prime minister said in an interview on One Radio, 

Muscat was speaking after a court last week granted him access to sections of the Vitals magisterial inquiry that concern him. 

He said that while it had been claimed that there were 78 boxes of evidence, what there was about him could fit into an envelope. 

"There isn't even one paper that shows anything," he said, adding that the case against him was based on assumptions. 

The Indian national had claimed he was pocketing €16 million a year, but the "so-called experts" could not find the money, he added.

"The so-called experts of the inquiry said I might be hiding money in Dubai only because I visited the country often; that's like saying that once you like to swim, you are a fish." 

The first hearing in the criminal case against Muscat is set for May 28. He will appear alongside others accused of corruption, bribery and money laundering.  

Speaking for the first time in years on the Labour Party's media, Muscat said the inquiry's conclusions were not well reasoned. 

"The reasoning of the inquiry is not even at the level of a Sunday morning chat over beer and appetizers in a bar". 

Muscat said this case was even "worse" than the Egrant inquiry. 

"Last time (Egrant) relied on the word of a Russian woman who escaped from Malta; this time around, they are relying on the word of an Indian man, who says he heard someone make claims about me". 

"At least the Russian (Maria Efimova) made the effort and falsified signatures," he said. 

The former prime minister did not name the Indian national he was referring to. 

He however reiterated that the magisterial inquiry report should be published. 

"I even asked my lawyers If I could share what I was given to journalists, but they said that would be a crime," he said. 

He told interviewer Emanuel Cuschieri that once his name was cleared, he would also seek political justice. The fallout from the court case would destroy the Nationalist Party and he would sue the people who instigated the inquiry, "not for the sake of Vendetta but for the sake of justice".  

Muscat said the case against was nothing more than a "sandcastle". However embellished, big and beautiful it was, one wave can destroy it. He would be that wave, a tsunami. 

When Cuschieri, a Muscat loyalist, asked how people should express their feelings on the case, Muscat urged them to vote for the Labour Party on June 8. 

"We can use our voice without hatred," he said. 

"Use the tool the PN are most afraid of: the vote."