Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said that the publication of the full hospitals inquiry shows that there isn’t a single piece of evidence against him, and said that the charges against him are based purely on conjecture.

Commenting on the newly published inquiry, Muscat stuck to the rhetoric of pointing out that the inquiry took four and a half years to be concluded and cost €11 million to be done – a figure first revealed by the Labour Party’s own newspaper.

“This inquiry found absolutely nothing about me... not one piece of evidence.  There are only conjectures, assumptions, and thoughts which the so-called experts had.  It is a report of experts which is at times contradictory, and which the magistrate did not make her own considerations on but simply issued charges based on it,” Muscat said in a video posted to social media.

He said that €11 million and four-and-a-half years had been spent to find a €60,000 transfer for work that he had done and that he himself had told them about because he had declared it in his tax filings.

The €60,000 refers to money Muscat received for unnamed consultancy services from Accutor AG.

Muscat said that despite this, an asset freezing order worth €30 million was issued without any justification as to where that figure came from.

The former Prime Minister continued that “in this second Egrant” it seems that someone relied on the testimony of “an Indian national” who said he heard someone say that Muscat might have taken millions in connection with the hospitals deal – millions which, Muscat pointed out, were never found.

Muscat said that the narrative now is ‘but what might Joseph have known or not known?’ and said that he would answer about this “when the time comes.”

He said he also looks forward to answering about a comment in the report where the experts say that there wasn’t any proof about the work that he had done for the €60,000, questioning why he hadn’t been asked to testify about this matter.

“Now I will give this evidence when the time comes in court to show how much work was actually done and back it up with proven facts,” he said.

Muscat continued that the court process will now start, and observed that even before the first sitting, charges against a company have already been dropped because it didn’t even exist when this case was investigated.

He said that the problem is that the case will unfortunately take long, but said that he is “resolute and focused” to “destroy this sand castle built on a lot of conjectures once and for all with a tsunami of facts and proof that I will bring forward in the future.”

He thanked people for their support in these times which he said will test their resolve.  He called for people to maintain their calm and serenity, as he has no doubt that “very important facts” will emerge to show that there are people who are again trying to push a lie “against him”, “which will now turn on those who were doing it.”