Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1037786
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 10 OCTOBER 2018 3 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Muscat, visibly irate, could be heard calling Busuttil "a fraud- ster" and the sitting was im- mediately suspended by deputy Speaker Claudette Buttigieg. When the sitting resumed af- ter a five-minute break, Busut- til raised a point of order say- ing that Muscat accused him of falsifying signatures – a likely reference to the Egrant affair – and told him: "I will make you carry the can, and you will not even be able to set foot in Malta again." Busuttil said, "Apart from cat- egorically denying these accusa- tions, apart from being proud of what I have done...," before being interrupted by Labour Whip By- ron Camilleri, who said Busuttil had not raised a breach of privi- lege. "I want a ruling to make the Prime Minister substantiate those accusations in my regard," Busuttil said, while asking the deputy Speaker to tell the Prime Minister to return and "either substantiate it or withdraw the comment". Muscat then stood up to speak, saying that he had already de- manded that Busuttil apologise for his actions against his family, and reinforced his accusation of fraud and forgery, referring to the falsification of signatures in the Egrant inquiry. Opposition leader Adrian De- lia then took the floor, saying the Prime Minister should make public the Egrant inquiry in its entirety, saying the accusation he was making was based on his privileged access to the inquiry report. He said that an imbal- ance had now also been created in parliament, while calling on the Prime Minister to substanti- ate or withdraw his comment. Busuttil said he agreed with Delia, and insisted that the Prime Minister had changed his version of events. "What the Prime Minister said is different to what I quote him saying," he told the deputy Speaker, adding that he would not allow such a "calumny" to be said about him. He said he had carried political responsibility when he had re- signed from party leader. "If any- one in here knows about politi- cal responsibility it is I… none of you are going to teach me about political responsibility." Muscat responded and said that he had only spoken about what was known. "I remind the leader of the Opposition that this was also the reason he had removed [Busuttil] from good governance spokesperson." He insisted that Busuttil had made his accusations – which were based on falsified docu- ments – his own and that, he had every right to ask him to carry responsibility. "Yes I did say I would make sure responsibility fell on him, because for me he is politically responsible for all this, and yes, I told him that he will not show his face in Malta because of the shame. If I were in his position I would have resigned from par- liament a long time ago," Muscat said. The Prime Minister did ac- knowledge that tempers flared and that he might have been too aggressive. "If I offended you in any way beyond political rheto- ric, I apologise." Busuttil said that it was true that he had believed the accusa- tions. "Everyone, not just Simon Busuttil, suspected that the com- pany was his." He then doubled down and accused Muscat of owning the secret Panamanian company Egrant, despite a magisterial in- quiry that said it could find no proof of any such ownership or of other accusations made by Busuttil at the time they were alleged by Caruana Galizia. "As long as you keep Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi by your side, many people out there, myself included, believe that Egrant is yours." Asked by Delia whether he would be withdrawing his com- ments, Muscat said that he had explained that what he said was political rhetoric, and that he would not be withdrawing his comments. Busuttil tells Muscat he, and others, still believe Egrant belongs to PM