Updated 10.10am with Repubblika reaction.

John Dalli, a former Nationalist minister and later adviser to Labour Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has demanded an apology from rule of law group Repubblika for associating him with corruption during a protest outside police headquarters on Tuesday.

In a statement, he said he was himself the victim of calumnies by murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia (whom he described as a "perverse criminal") and fraud by the former head of the EU anti-fraud agency OLAF.

He said Caruana Galizia had invented stories linking him to  Egrant, 17 Black and the privatisation of hospitals and she was given impunity by a Labour government when he took action against her for harassment. "They prevented the police from proceeding with an investigation which they had started," he said.

Dalli said he may also have been confused with someone who stole millions in the oil scandal or who acted as a nominee to register in Malta companies for the mafia or illegally changed the conditions of land contracts. 

Describing Repubblika as "a small group of exalted puppets who do not represent anyone" but is boosted by the "corrupt" media he said he expected the group to substantiate its allegations or issue an apology. 

Repubblika dismissed Dalli's statement with the tweet below. 

Group president Robert Aquilina in a statement later recalled that it was the police commissioner himself who in January 2015 said that in 2013 the police had written advice by the attorney general to take action against Dalli.

Last September commissioner Gafa' reiterated that he believed there still was a case against Dalli.

It was surreal that Dalli now expected an apology. He hoped that the police commissioner would translate words to action, Aquilina said.