If you are on the side of justice, you wouldn’t want to be the one undermining with criticism the case of the state against a former prime minister and his associates who were allegedly responsible for the fraud involving three public hospitals.

Two courts have established that the sale of St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo General hospitals was collusive and corrupt, as they struck down the deal and returned the valuable assets to the Maltese public. However, only a criminal prosecution can hold accountable the individuals who paid bribes to acquire the hospitals, those who took them and those who facilitated them.

They don’t want to let it happen and, like any criminal defendant, they are doing their utmost to avoid it. However, it’s essential to remember that not all criminal defendants are former prime ministers or ex-government ministers from a ruling party. These defendants possess means to escape their alleged crimes that most other alleged criminals do not. And they are using them.

While I am reluctant to predict the demise of the case against Joseph Muscat, I shall not allow unfounded optimism or blind hope to distract me from the reality that the chances of the state’s case do not appear favourable.

I’ll cite two reasons.

Firstly, there is the constitutional case brought by Muscat, who claims breaches of his fundamental rights. This case is presently being heard by Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti.

In brief, the case centres on the assertion that when the magistrate overseeing the inquiry into the privatisation of hospitals decided to include Muscat in her list of suspects, Muscat had the right to be informed and heard by the magistrate. This right is, of course, a myth.

An inquiry is not a trial; while investigators or an inquiring magistrate gather evidence and have yet to establish that an individual might have a case to answer, there is no reason why the suspect should be permitted to intervene.

If and when they are accused of something, they will have the right to access any evidence that may be used against them or in their favour, and, while presumed innocent, they will be entitled to all means necessary to defend themselves.

However, Muscat seems to believe he is exceptional, or, at least, that is what his argument for dropping the case against him, rooted in these fabricated violations, implies. He has taken legal action against the Maltese state, and the lawyers representing the Maltese state have, to this point, contended in Mr Justice Grixti’s court that Muscat’s allegations are absurd and without merit.

Something has transpired in the interim.

The government is hastily pushing a bill through parliament that enshrines the “rights” Muscat falsely claims to possess. They are not granting these rights exclusively to Muscat, mind you. They are providing every alleged criminal with a battering ram to undermine every single criminal investigation in the future, purely to assist Muscat in his current predicament. These new ‘rights’ will become law before Lent is over.

Here’s what happens next. When Muscat’s pretended rights become law, lawyers for the Maltese state will abandon their defence in the constitutional case he initiated.

They would no longer be able to argue that Muscat’s claim has no basis in law. Muscat wins. The charges against him are annulled by order of the court, which is authorised to grant any remedy to address the imaginary wrong he has suffered.

Not that they’re leaving anything to chance. Even if it should survive this piece of legal trickery carried out by an accused individual with the implicit power of causing laws to be written, what is left of the case for the prosecution in the hospitals case hangs by a thread. That’s how a gleeful member of the enormous defence team representing Muscat and his co-accused has described it.

Joseph Muscat will coordinate a political pogrom intended to excoriate his political enemies- Manuel Delia

The behaviour of a key prosecution witness is, to be kind, peculiar.

Jeremy Harbinson, the director of the forensic accounting firm that advised the inquiry into the hospital swindle, has produced a report that is a critical part of the evidence.

His firm has since shut down, and he appears to have retired to care for his ailing wife. He refuses to testify in the compilation of evidence, citing various reasons, including his fear for his life.

I do not know the real reason why Harbinson is refusing to testify.

Nor do I understand why the tools available to the state to help the court hear his evidence are not being used.

I do not know if anyone got to Harbinson, whether with silver or the threat of lead.

I know that if he does not show up, Muscat and his associates will benefit enormously and might walk away with a lifetime immunity from being prosecuted for the botched and collusive privatisation of a big chunk of Malta’s public health service.

Here’s what follows. If you remember the aftermath of the conclusion of the Egrant inquiry, Muscat will coordinate a political pogrom intended to excoriate his political enemies. In 2019, even two years after she was killed, Muscat sought to crush the memory and reputation of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

His other – living – target was Simon Busuttil. Helped by a panicked and ill-thought reaction by the Nationalist Party, Muscat sought to isolate Busuttil and utterly consume him in the fire of the public anger he bellowed.

That vile campaign was not entirely successful.

This time, Muscat is preparing to organise what he intends to be his final revenge on those who ever dared to hold him accountable for capturing the Maltese state for his and his associates’ profit. They are identifying their targets.

You can see it in the ‘reporting’ on the media. You can hear it in the drumming by Muscat’s online acolytes. You can read it in Robert Abela’s rhetoric about extremist Nationalists and political judges.

Their plan relies on others making the same mistakes they did in 2019; that the gaslighting works to the point that people who should know better wonder if Muscat’s fatal purity is no more than a victim tied to the stake by evil perpetrators and false accusers.

This is why we need to face the reality of how they’re manipulating the state’s case to let Muscat off. We must prepare for the violent hurricane that follows. We need to recognise this new phase of the criminal capture of the Maltese state before it happens if we are even to hope to slow it down.