The Nationalist Party has said that it is expecting the country’s institutions to act decisively and with determination over a magisterial inquiry report which was presented to the Attorney General some days ago.
The inquiry was the one requested by former PN leader Simon Busuttil in May 2017 over money laundering allegations on ex OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and ex Allied Newspapers managing director Adrian Hillman, wherein Schembri allegedly passed €650,000 on to Hillmann through regular €5,000 payments between 2011 and 2015.
The PN said that it firmly believes that it is in the public’s interest that the report is published as soon as possible and without any censure.
They said that after ridiculing Busuttil and the PN back in 2017, the PL and Joseph Muscat have now fallen silent. The PN said that despite receiving an FIAU report on the case, the police never took any steps against Schembri or Hillman.
“In light of recent developments, the PN expects the country’s institutions to stop dragging their feet and to immediately take all the necessary steps against those people who committed serious crimes of corruption and money laundering”, the party said in a statement.
The PN also said that at a bare minimum, the conclusions of any magisterial inquiry investigating a person in a public role should be published as it is in people’s interest to know what has been found.
“The public cannot be kept blind to the corruption of Joseph Muscat and his friends, and the Labour Government cannot continues to hide behind inquiries which remain hidden themselves”, the party said.
The country’s institutions need to prove that they truly are working for justice to be done, and not that they are not going to allow politicians to control them in order to protect people like Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, and Konrad Mizzi.
“More delays in this case means that the Maltese and Gozitan people will continue to be denied justice and will mean that the fight against corruption and abuse of power in our country”, the PN concluded.