Labour MP and former health minister Godfrey Farrugia has handed over his tablet to MITA, the Malta Information Technology Agency, in order for the agency to investigate the mystery disappearance of an email he sent to the media containing a statement and the content of his resignation letter.

Dr Farrugia confirmed with this paper that MITA officers took his iPad in order to try and establish what happened to the email.

In an interview in The Malta Independent’s sister paper last month, Dr Farrugia claimed that the email, sent from his official government email address, never reached its intended recipients. The public only learnt about his resignation as health minister after his partner, Marlene Farrugia, posted his resignation letter on Facebook.

The former health minister had said that he sent out the email shortly after he sent an sms to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, informing him about his resignation.

Dr Farrugia is till this day perplexed as to where the email ended up. His willingness to hand over his tablet to the government lends credence to the fact that he genuinely believes that the email was sent but somehow remotely deleted.

Dr Farrugia is certain that the email, sent from his official car from his tablet device just outside the Office of the Prime Minister, as he has done several times over the last year, was in fact sent off.

The government has thus far been silent on the matter, despite several attempts by this paper to elicit a public response. The Opposition has also called for an investigation into the electronic hiccup.

IT experts have informed this paper that technically speaking it is possible to halt an email sent over the government’s network in its track, but this would require close monitoring of the person’s email account.