Robert Abela has not yet sued Steward for a €400 million refund because he must defend Joseph Muscat for getting him elected Labour leader, Bernard Grech said on Sunday.

"Three weeks ago I asked Robert Abela to sue Steward to get the money back but he has not yet found the courage to do it.

"He is weak and he is a coward. He is being controlled because a few days before the PL leadership election, Abela got the help he needed from Muscat and was elected leader on the condition that he protects Muscat. He continues to protect him to this day," Grech told party supporters in Gozo. 

"He also continues to defend [former energy minister] Konrad Mizzi, [former chief of staff] Keith Schembri and the transgressions of the past decade," he added.

Despite insisting he had nothing to do with the deal, Abela continued to defend it and vote in favour of it in parliament, Grech said.

It is likely that Abela was part of the greatest robbery in the country's history because he served as a government consultant back then, Grech said.

And if he was really not involved in it, then it can only mean that he was being paid a consultancy fee for not doing his job. It could only be one or the other, he added.

"He defended all of Labour's corrupt deals, including this one, while he was an MP, and when he became prime minister he lawyered up against Adrian Delia to try to prevent him from returning the hospitals to the people," he said.

"That is why he is weak. Because he is protecting rich and powerful criminals instead of standing by the weak and vulnerable who need him the most."

Grech was speaking during the party's first political event in Gozo since the hospitals' deal judgment was delivered last month. The PN leader said the Gozitans were among the biggest victims of the Vitals deal and that the government served their only hospital on a golden plate to foreign investors with fraudulent intent.

Grech claimed that medical services in Gozo had recently taken a hit: Gozitans, he said, constantly complained of having to travel to Malta for basic medical services.

At the same time, people across both islands were being forced to book surgeries in private hospitals because public hospitals' waiting lists were too long.

"If they can afford to book an operation in a private hospital, all well and good, but what about those who cannot afford it? What are they going to do," he asked.

"Abela robbed the people of their peace of mind in the most crucial sector - their health."

'Gozitans died because of Steward helicopter delays'

During the event on Sunday, Gozo MP Chris Said also weighed in on the issue, saying that the helicopter that Steward brought to transport patients between the islands - which was most of the little investment the company made - could not even land on hospital grounds because the helipad was removed from the Gozo hospital to make space for Barts Medical School.

"[Minister] Anton Refalo is well aware of this because when he needed the helicopter but he himself couldn't make use of it," he said.

"Gozitan patients must first be taken via ambulance to a helipad in Xewkija before they can board the helicopter, and some of them lost their lives because of the delays."

'Your own people are denouncing you'

On Sunday Grech also said Abela was afraid of the truth and wanted to hide it when it comes to other issues, and not just in the case of the hospitals' deal.

Abela had kept a report on police shortcomings in the case of Bernice Cassar hidden for a month, and now he continued to refuse to order a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia, he said.

"And when Mark Camilleri, a Labourite himself, published the [Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech's] chats, Abela did not turn on his own people to investigate what is wrong in his party, but came down like the Gestapo on Camilleri," Grech said.

"Your own people are denouncing you because you lost your socialist soul. You ruined a party and you're not a true Labourite," he told Abela.

Grech also called out Finance Minister Clyde Caruana for failing to tighten the belt on wasteful government spending.

"End your friends' direct orders Clyde. End those €80,000 consultancy salaries, end the theft and stop the money that is being paid to Steward," he said.

"Work for the people and stop robbing them."

Grech also said more people were registering as PN members because they wanted to strengthen the party and he appealed to voters to truly make Malta everyone's country.

"Let's work so that Malta truly belongs to everyone," he said, echoing Muscat's 2013 famous election slogan Malta Tagħna Lkoll.

"We need to re-establish justice, work and freedom from oppression," he added, this time echoing former PN prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami's famous slogan Xogħol, Ġustizzja, Libertà.

'Steward also taking rent money from Barts' - Chris Said

Said meanwhile said that while more is yet to emerge on the hospitals' deal, that which is already known is as scandalous as it gets.

"Let's take Barts Medical School. It was a good investment, but it was built on government land, with money that Steward got from the government and was only finished because Barts had threatened to quit Malta if it was not finished in time," he said.

"Now Barts is paying €1.5 million per year in rent to Steward. And where do you think Barts is getting that money from? From Malta Enterprise. So your taxes are going to Barts so that Barts can pay rent to Steward."

'Biggest robbery in the history of the country' - Alex Borg

PN's Gozo spokesperson, Alex Borg, also referred to the deal as the biggest robbery in history and said that recent events have shown, yet again, that the PN was on the right side of history and on the right track to becoming an effective and successful alternative government.

A new PN government will ensure nobody was left behind, he said.

"Despite economic growth, we have never witnessed such a huge economic divide between those who have money and those who do not," he said.

"How can you believe in social justice when young people are leaving because they are fed up? When the elderly struggle to make ends meet? When the government took away from us the only hospital we had in Gozo, gave it to private investors who promised investment and did nothing?"

'Labour has raked deficits' - Adrian Delia

Adrian Delia also addressed party supporters on Sunday.

The former PN leader said he did not have enough time to list all of the government's 'sins', so he will just stick to the ones that happened over the past year.

There were seven main deficits, he said, among them the obvious financial deficit. The country has raked €10 billion in debt and not because it was investing in anything, he said.

"We also have an environmental deficit. One of Labour's election promises was to spend €100 million every year on environmental projects," he said.

"A year after the election, where are the first €100 million? Where are the parks and gardens and afforestation projects? We only continue to become densely populated and our children barely have anywhere to breathe."

Delia also complained of a moral deficit, arguing that the only law that Abela sought to pass for families this year was one to introduce abortion.

Lack of investment in Gozitan roads, infrastructure and job opportunities is also another one of this government's deficits, he said.

Gozitans have been relegated to second-class citizenship, Delia added.

"Finally, we have a deficit of normality. This is not a normal country and we have been saying this for years," he said.

"In a normal country, the government protects the vulnerable and the weak, and when powerful people make mistakes, they resign. But not in Malta. They ditched decency and stripped us of our national pride."