Robert Aquilina, Fondazione Falcone's representative in Malta, has hit out at Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa, saying that the Commissioner should have conducted interrogations in the hospitals deal case.

Aquilina issued a reaction to Gafa's statements responding to allegations he had made.

"Yesterday, Angelo Gafà reacted to what I had told the public a few hours earlier, and to the CID in recent days, regarding how he undermined the prosecutions resulting from the magisterial inquiry into fraud and corruption in the hospital contracts," Aquilina said.

Aquilina said that the Commissioner "'categorically and unequivocally denies the allegations', pointing out that there were immediate criminal proceedings in Court, 'led by the Office of the Attorney General with the assistance of the Police'."

"Take note that while in the first part of that sentence he denied what I stated to the CID about him, in the second part he contradicted himself and admitted that after the conclusion of the inquiry, the police did not interrogate any of the 40 people indicated in the inquiry, and he made no attempt to turn one or more of them into state witnesses."

"Then, in the following sentence of his reaction, he said: 'In light of this, and in the interest of not prejudicing these sensitive and active processes, it would not be appropriate to comment in detail at this stage.' Which means he's telling us there's evidence that exonerates him from what I am saying about him, but he cannot say what it is or show it to us. The usual gimmicks, which he has used so often that they impress no one anymore."

He said Gafa is trying to hide something which cannot be hidden. "It was he-with the help of the Attorney General and with the approval of the Prime Minister-who wanted to sabotage the magisterial inquiry and undermine the prosecutions in this case by discarding and renouncing the effective tools the law provides him."

In the weeks between the conclusion of the inquiry and the arraignment of the 40 accused in court, Gafa should have used the tool of interrogation, Aquilina said. "That is the established practice. In those weeks, he also should have made every effort to convince one or more of those dozens of indicated individuals to become state witnesses. He did neither. He threw those tools out the window. By doing so, he gave a helping hand to the disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, and their accomplices."

The tool of interrogation led to Melvin Theuma in the case of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia confessing, exposing his accomplices, and becoming a state witness, Aquilina said. "That same tool of interrogation led Kenneth Camilleri to say to the police that Keith Schembri had sent him to speak to Melvin Theuma and calm him down."

"Gafà, with the complicity of the Attorney General, did not want anyone to break under the pressure of interrogation, so the police did not interrogate a single one of the indicated individuals. He made sure that, in the hospitals case, there would be no other Melvin Theuma who might expose his accomplices and testify against them in court."