Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/826032
ELECTION SPECIAL €1.00 Newspaper post FRIDAY • 19 MAY 2017 • ISSUE 530 • WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT ELECTIONS DAYS TO GO 15 'Egrant inquiry not finding enough evidence would be mind-boggling,' Busuttil says Simon Busuttil to follow in Eddie Fenech Adami's footsteps and unite a divided country if elected on 3 June Muscat vows to get to the bottom of Egrant 'calumny' after inquiry is published MIRIAM DALLI PRIME Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday accused Opposition leader Simon Busuttil of delib- erately holding on to informa- tion that was passed on to the Commissioner of Police over transactions made by chief of staff Keith Schembri, to pur- posely delay the outcome of a magisterial inquiry. Joseph Muscat said he was confident that an inquiry into allegations that his fam- ily owned an offshore company Egrant Inc., would absolve him, saying he was ready to resign at the slightest hint of a link. "Busuttil has not taken my challenge to do likewise if the Egrant inquiry absolves me… I have no doubt that yesterday's publication of the transactions was done because Busuttil knows he will get caught up in a lie about Egrant, and he is trying to delay the inquiries." Muscat insisted that it was the Egrant allegation that escalated matters, when Busuttil held a press conference expressing concern on the gravity of the situation. "I'm waiting for Busuttil to take up my challenge… After the inquiry is published, I want to get to the bottom of this mat- ter, to know personally and for the country, to see who coordi- nated this lie. I will consider all steps af- ter the magistrate's inquiry is published." PAGE 5 PAUL COCKS THE possibility of a magiste- rial inquiry not finding enough evidence to warrant an inves- tigation into whether prime minister Joseph Muscat or his wife owned shares in secret Panama company Egrant was mind-boggling, especially since a whistleblower had come for- ward to testify as to what she had seen and read, opposition leader Simon Busuttil said yes- terday. "I shudder at the thought of magistrate Aaron Bugeja's in- quiry concluding there was not enough evidence to warrant a criminal investigation, es- pecially since this former em- ployee of Pilatus Bank turned whistleblower," he said. Replying to questioning by Saviour Balzan on yesterday's edition of Xtra, Busuttil said there was so much evidence Muscat should have left years ago and that it was therefore no wonder that the prime minister had lost all credibility. Busuttil said that the allega- tions he made on Wednesday – in which he claimed to have proof of further graft and mon- ey laundering involving Mus- cat's chief of staff Keith Schem- bri – should not have come as a surprise to anyone. "In a normal country, the commissioner of police and the Attorney General should have investigated the claims I made on Wednesday last year, when they first learned of the evi- dence," he said. Asked why he went to magis- trate Aaron Bugeja, who is lead- ing the inquiry into the Egrant allegations, to make himself available to present the new evi- dence - and not to magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras who is already leading an inquiry into claims that Schembri is in- volved in graft and money laun- dering with Brian Tonna - Bu- suttil said: "I went to magistrate Aaron Bugeja to inform him I was prepared to present this new evidence, because magis- trate Natasha Galea Sciberras' terms of reference are limited to investigating Schembri's in- volvment in taking kickbacks through the IIP citizenship scheme." He said magistrate Bugeja's remit, on the other hand, be- sides investigating claims that Muscat or his wife were share- holders in the secret Panama company Egrant, also included establishing whether Muscat, Schembri and minister Konrad Mizzi had accounts at Pilatus Bank and whether there was any truth to claims of money laundering. PAGE 6 Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the opposition was 'caught up in a lie over Egrant' and deliberately holding on to information