Simon Busuttil has come out guns blazing against his own party leader after he was suspended from the party following the publication of the Egrant inquiry report.

Earlier today, PN Leader Adrian Delia said he had asked Busuttil to suspend himself, adding that he had also taken away Busuttil’s good governance portfolio.

In a reaction on Facebook, Busuttil said he had told Delia that he saw no reason why he should resign.  

“Delia took this decision without first seeing he full report, which has not yet been published. Furthermore, Delia wants to remove from the party whilst at the same time expecting me to continue working on the inquiries against Mizzi and Schembri. This is a great contradiction,” Busuttil said.

The former PN leader said that in a democracy an Opposition’s main duty was to speak on serious allegations, more so when these affected the Prime Minister directly, and especially when Mizzi and Schembri had already been caught with secret companies. Worse still, all this was happening in the wake of a journalist’s murder and the arrest, in the US, of the chairman of Pilatus Bank.

Busuttil said he was proud to be fighting for justice, even if he is the last one doing so.

“On his part, Adrian Delia has sided with Joseph Muscat instead of strengthening the PN in the fight against corruption.  Now we have come to an absurd level where the PL is congratulating Adrian Delia,” Busuttil said, referring to an earlier statement by the Labour Party.

“The PN should remain united in its fight against corruption. I appeal to Dr Delia to not allow Joseph Muscat to use him. Neither should he use this situation to try and get rid of me.”

 

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Eearlier

 

Former Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil has reacted to the conclusions of the Egrant inquiry, saying that the Prime Minister’s call for his resignation was “ridiculous.”

In a Facebook post, Busuttil said the entire report should be published, not just excerpts.

Busuttil said the public has a right to see the entire report, while he will give further reactions when the full report is published.

Busuttil said the parts of the report published so far fail to answer the most important question: Who does Egrant belong to?

If the inquiry found that it belongs to Brian Tonna, who operates as a financial intermediary, then the question is ‘who was Tonna holding the company for’, Busuttil said.

“This is a crucial point, more so when Tonna opened up another two Panama companies for Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi at the same time.”

“The PM’s call for my resignation is totally ridiculous and the PM is the last person who can speak about political responsibility seeing that he never shouldered his in all the scandals and corruption cases that took place under his watch. I remind the PM that the inquiry was not about me, because Egrant does not belong to me. My duty as a public person, a former leader of the PN and the Opposition was to react to a serious allegation and insist that the truth should come out. More so when we already knew that the two other companies belonged to Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. This is the duty of any opposition. What did the Prime Minister expect? That these allegations would come out and we would remain silent?”

Busuttil also reminded the PM that before calling for political responsibility to be shouldered one had to wait for the conclusion of other inquiries he (Busuttil) had requested. These include the inquiry on the FIAU report about moneys allegedly received by Keith Schembri from the passport scheme; the inquiry about an FIAU report on money that Schembri allegedly received from Adrian Hillman and, more importantly; the inquiry about the Panama companies of Schembri and Mizzi.

“If he truly believes in justice, the PM should stop hindering the Panama Papes inquiry as he has been doing for the past year,” Busuttil said.

Pierre Portelli

In another reaction, former TMI Director of Content and Business Pierre Portelli said he believes and accepts the conclusions of the inquiry.

Portelli said he had full faith in Magistrate Bugeja and the inquiry and had, out of his own will gone to the magistrate with the information he had received when still a director of an independent newspaper.

He said that it was his own choice to hand the documents, which allegedly showed who the owner of Egrant Inc was, to the magistrate to be investigated with the resources available to him.

Portelli pointed out that he had never published the documents and had never shown them to anyone but the inquiring magistrate. In fact, he had asked to see the magistrate privately and handed the documents to him directly.

Portelli, who now heads the PN’s media arm, said he would continue to cooperate with the authorities in the search for the truth.

 

Maria Efimova

In a tweet, Maria Efimova said she stood by what she had said.