Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he had full trust in the police and agrees with the Nationalist Party that they should be investigated the three hospitals’ case, but he had little if any trust in the magistrate conducting the inquiry, and he had asked her to step away from the case.

He said that leaks that came from the inquiry that the magistrate – Gabriella Vella – is carrying out, as well as comments by her relatives on the social media undermine her credibility. He suspects that the inquiry is preventing the police from carrying out their investigation.

Last May, Muscat filed a request for the recusal of the magistrate who is leading the inquiry into the concession which saw three hospitals handed over first to Vitals Global Healthcare and then to Steward Health Care.

Muscat said that he wants the inquiry “to pass to another member of the Judiciary who can secure impartiality, both as perception and a matter of fact, in this case which has now turned political.”

The magistrate had declined the request, with Muscat taking the matter further by filing an application calling for her recusal, which was also rejected.

Interviewed on Smash TV by former Labour Party president Manuel Cuschieri, Muscat said that he “has no trust in the way the inquiry is being led... and I agree with the Opposition’s challenge in court for the police to start its own investigations. They have my support. I want the Commissioner of Police to carry out an investigation independent of the magistrate.

Muscat suggested that, after his request to be heard in the ongoing inquiry was ignored, the police was prevented from carrying out its own criminal investigation.

“I have full trust in the Commissioner of Police... my own challenge is that the police should start investigating now, so that the facts are known.”

If the findings of the inquiry led him to be charged in court, Muscat said that this would be a ‘second Egrant’, referring to the Panama Papers scandal, which saw accusations that he or family members were the owners of a third company that was opened in Panama (aside from that owned by Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri).

Muscat said he cannot be found guilty of any charge. “Egrant is no longer mentioned... I’ve testifed in a House committee for some five times now on Electrogas, yet nobody has ever once mentioned Egrant.”

On the Appeals Court judgement that reconfirmed the rescission case against Steward, Muscat now says the courts have misrepresented the nature of the negotiations between his administration and Vitals or Steward. “We were signing waivers and agreements that were meant to keep the discussion on the table, in a bid to make this concession work... the courts have dubbed this ‘collusion’,” Muscat said.

He alluded to a hidden group of doctors whose agenda against the privatisation of the hospitals was driven by an interest in maintaining the long waiting lists at State hospitals, because it allows them to cash in by diverting patients to their own private clinics.