Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Monday defended his chief of staff’s decision to withdraw a libel suit after he was forced to testify and had a dig at Opposition leader Adrian Delia, who he said had done the same thing.
“I am being taken to task on my handling of Mr [Keith] Schembri by somebody who at the first available possibility withdrew libel proceedings which he had instituted, in the wake of allegations that he had been involved in money laundering,” Joseph Muscat said.
The Prime Minister made the remark in Parliament in a brief exchange with Dr Delia, who raised the matter at the end of the question time.
Mr Schembri on Monday morning withdrew a libel suit he had filed within minutes of being forced to testify.
Dr Delia reacted by saying Mr Schembri should resign or be sacked, and during Monday’s parliamentary session he asked the Prime Minister if he would be making a statement on whether Mr Schembri’s position as his chief of staff was tenable.
The Prime Minister said he had no intention of making such a statement and reiterated the reasons Mr Schembri had given for dropping the libel suit.
Mr Schembri, the Prime Minister said, would be replying to questions on 17 Black but only when asked to do so as part of an ongoing magisterial inquiry.
17 Black is a Dubai-registered company named in a leaked email as being the
source of income for Mr Schembri’s once-secret Panama company, Tillgate.
Double standards
The Prime Minister accused Dr Delia of double standards, noting that he had withdrawn libel suits he had filed in 2017 against Daphne Caruana Galizia some months later, after she was murdered.
Dr Muscat has interpreted that decision as an attempt to avoid testifying in court about the money laundering claims which Ms Caruana Galizia had made about him.
Judicial appointments
Dr Muscat also criticised the Opposition’s consistency in term of judicial appointments, saying on one hand they had objected to the appointment of Magistrate Victor Axiaq who was presiding Mr Schembri’s libel case, while at the same time heaping praise on him.
In his reaction, the Opposition leader refuted the Prime Minister’s “mud-slinging” claims, saying he never refused to turn up and was always available to set the record straight.
“I came here and said that if there is anything to investigate in my regard, I am fully available for the institutions, unlike Keith Schembri,” he said.
Dr Delia said the Prime Minister was failing to make a distinction between political and criminal responsibility.
“Once Schembri is invoking his right to remain silent, he believes that doing so he would be admitting to breaching the law,” the Opposition leader said.
Consequently, the Prime Minister was bound to ask for his resignation.
“What is he afraid of? Who is really in command?” he questioned.
Dr Delia said Dr Muscat had lost a golden opportunity to start restoring the country’s reputation in the wake of the concerns expressed by the Venice Commission – the group of Council of Europe experts on the rule of law.
“His main interest is not to safeguard citizens, but against all logic defend those around him.”
Pitching his address to the members of Cabinet and government backbenchers, the Opposition leader questioned if they were comfortable with the Prime Minister’s handling of Mr Schembri’s case.