Comments made by Prime Minister Robert Abela towards Nationalist Party MP Adrian Delia during the 25 February parliamentary session can be considered as "political interpretation", Speaker Anglu Farrugia ruled during Thursday's parliamentary session.

The ruling was in relation to a complaint raised by Delia during the 25th February sitting regarding 'objectionable speech' by the Prime Minister directed towards the PN MP.

As he delivered his ruling on the matter, Farrugia said that what was said during the 25th February session in this regard "is a matter of broad interpretation and is certainly all political bickering".

The complaint in question was regarding comments made by the Prime Minister, in which he said that the PN tried to get members of the armed forces sent to prison. Delia had said that this was a lie and called for the Prime Minister to retract his comments, as he then made a request to the Speaker calling for Abela's comments to be retracted.

Following this, the Prime Minister had refused to say that Delia was not involved in the calls to arrest members of the armed forces. He did not retract any of his comments on this matter.

Abela was referring to a situation which took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. During the 25 February session, the Prime Minister had said that Delia supported the opening of an investigation concerning what the PM said was a situation where soldiers had gone on a rescue mission "to save lives in the middle of the night hundreds of miles off our shores in a severe storm".

The Speaker said that Delia was in agreement with the request for a magisterial inquiry into the matter in relation to the reporting of several deaths at sea. Farrugia said that while the intention of the inquiry was to investigate whether there was any guilt or otherwise on the part of the Armed Forces, the intention of Delia, who was the Leader of the Opposition at the time, "can be considered a political interpretation".