Former prime minister Joseph Muscat on Wednesday attacked an affidavit by the widower of assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia which details her controversial reporting on mystery offshore company Egrant.  

In a lengthy post on his personal Facebook, Muscat said the post was a departure from past claims that he and his wife had committed serious criminal offences. 

The affidavit was filed in court in libel proceedings initiated by Muscat against the late journalist over alleged claims that his wife owned the the Panama company.

In his sworn statement, Caruana Galizia says that his wife had written a blog post that money had been transferred between Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and three mystery offshore companies: Egrant, Hillgate and Hearnville.  

"There is no indication or allegation in the article that Joseph Muscat or Michelle Muscat received any money directly or indirectly from a company owned by Leyla Aliyeva," the affidavit reads. 

Caruana Galizia also referred to a disclaimer published on the Panama Papers’ findings which said that not all those who had opened offshore companies had necessarily committed any crimes.

In his Facebook post, Muscat met this with incredulity. 

“Yes, you read correctly. This is something completely new when one considers the lies that were made about us,” his post reads.  

In April 2017 the journalist had published information on her blog about a $1million transaction from an account at Pilatus Bank to another bank account in Dubai.

Caruana Galizia had said the Pilatus account belonged to a company called Al Sahra FZCO, incorporated in Dubai, which belonged to Aliyeva.

The intended recipient of the funds was Egrant Inc., the third mystery Panama company set up by Nexia BT along with Tillgate and Hearnville, owned by Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, respectively.

Caruana Galizia also alleged that several payments of $100,000 each had been made from Al Sahra’s account at Pilatus to that of Egrant in Dubai between January and March 2016. 

She would go on to publish claims that Egrant belonged to Michelle Muscat. A photo of her and Aliyeva was also been published.   

“Who knows how many times they shared that photo of my wife and Ms Aliyeva,” Muscat’s Facebook post reads.

He goes on to say that a magisterial inquiry conducted by Aaron Bugeja, today a judge, had concluded that the alleged transaction had never occurred.  In his affidavit, the widower Caruana Galizia says the inquiry had not discovered who owned the offshore company and so was not conclusive. 

He also said that his late wife had never told him who her sources were on these reports, but he knew that she had seen a number of documents before deciding to publish.  

Muscat however said that an inquiry had concluded that these documents were not genuine. He repeated his assertion that he will only drop the libel case if the family reject the Egrant inquiry's conclusions.  

Caruana Galizia’s affidavit argues that the late journalist had never explicitly accused Muscat or his wife of any crimes.  

Muscat on his part described this as a departure from the narrative that had sprung from Caruana Galizia’s Egrant reports. 

Muscat had claimed that the reason he called an early election in 2017 was because Caruana Galizia's Egrant reporting had created political and social instability in the country.  

The Caruana Galizia family strongly contest this claim.