Updated 2.20pm, adds PL, government statements
Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà will not investigate the hospitals deal until the ongoing magisterial inquiry is concluded, Bernard Grech and Adrian Delia said on Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning, the Opposition Leader and PN MP walked into the police headquarters demanding to meet with Gafà to ask him to open an investigation into following a judgment throwing out Steward's appeal seeking to annul the deal.
However, the two were left waiting as Gafà was not at GHQ. He later arrived and met with the PN officials.
Grech said during the meeting Gafà confirmed to them he was not investigating the case and does not intend to open an investigation until the ongoing magisterial inquiry is concluded.
The meeting was “quite long and detailed”, Grech said but offered them little comfort nonetheless.
“The commissioner confirmed to us that the police are not investigating the case,” he said.
“He told us he will not open a police investigation until the magisterial inquiry is done.”
The magisterial inquiry into the hospitals deal was triggered by NGO Repubblika in 2019 and is yet to be concluded.
“It was not a government institution that triggered that inquiry and it was not a government institution that took the case to court, but Adrian Delia who was then PN leader,” Grech said.
“So the police commissioner is telling us that had it not been for Repubblika and the PN, the government institutions would have done nothing on the deal. This confirms our country’s institutions have failed us.”
He said the PN will continue to mount pressure “every day” to make sure action is taken and urged people to join the party’s protest on Sunday afternoon at Castille Square.
Missing police commissioner
Grech and Delia walked into the police headquarters on Tuesday morning, demanding to speak to Gafà and urge him to investigate senior government officials for colluding with hospital investors to defraud people.
Gafà, they said, did not need the appeals court sentence to investigate government officials who fixed the deal, but Monday’s sentence should compel him to take action.
They also took a copy of the appeals court sentence to hand it to Gafà “to push him to do his job”.
However, 45 minutes later they came out again saying that Gafà did not show up.
“Where is the police commissioner?” Grech told reporters still waiting outside.
“We will stay here and wait for him and we will hold him responsible if he fails his duty to the people.”
Delia said the police often charge people who harmed their victims. In this case, Gafà has before him the biggest number of victims there has ever been - the entire country.
“So what could be more important on this day than this investigation?” he asked.
“If this is not the most important thing on his agenda today, I don’t know how he expects to be taken seriously.”
Grech and Delia then went back inside the headquarters to wait for Gafà. Shortly after they informed the media that the commissioner had called them and said he was on his way to meet them.
In a statement in the afternoon, the Labour Party said the Opposition leader was trying to manipulate the institutions rather than allowing them to work in peace.
The people would have less confidence in the institutions if they acted in line with what the Opposition wanted. The government's duty was to protect the independence of the institutions, it said.
Labour MPs are complicit in scandal - Grech
On Monday an appeals court declared the hospitals' deal officially null and void.
The decision confirms a landmark judgment earlier in the year to cancel contracts related to the deal, on the basis that Steward had not fulfilled its contractual obligations. The court had concluded that the hospitals' deal appeared to be fraudulent.
The judgment implicates Joseph Muscat and his top brass in wrongdoing even more than the original sentence.
While the original court decision had pinned the blame for the "fraudulent" deal on Steward, the court of appeal said it also believed there was "collusion between Steward and senior government officials or its agencies".
“Today we have confirmation that all MPs in the Labour government since 2013 have all been complicit in this deal at every stage,” Grech said on Tuesday.
Adrian Delia said Monday’s judgment did not just rule against the hospital investors, but also against top government officials who enabled the fraud.
“Monday’s judgment leaves no doubt that the Commissioner must investigate top government officials,” he said.
“It is our moral duty to make sure justice is done and those who did anything wrong take responsibility and pay for their actions.”
The Opposition filed a motion on Monday calling on the government to take Steward Healthcare to court and recoup €400 million that "were stolen" through the hospitals' deal.
However, Prime Minister Robert Abela said the government had already launched legal action against Steward through the International Chamber of Commerce.
The PL leader told the House the arbitration would decide which services Steward had failed to provide and what money had to be returned.
On Tuesday however, Bernard Grech said the move clearly meant Abela continues to be on Steward and Vitals' side, and not the country’s.