Malta’s ex-prime minister among leading public figures charged in corruption scandal

MALTA’S government has been plunged into turmoil after several top officials were accused of taking bribes.

Joseph Muscat will become the first ex-prime minister in Malta’s history to face criminal charges, along with the current deputy prime minister and the governor of the central bank.

The latest scandal on the Mediterranean island revolves around a contentious hospital privatisation deal, worth about €4billion (£3.4million), that has been the subject of a long-running investigation.

Public trust in Malta’s institutions is already low after years of corruption allegations. Mr Muscat resigned in 2019 after members of his entourage were implicated in the 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist. He has been charged with corruption in public office, accepting bribes, setting up a criminal association and money laundering.

“If they weren’t so serious, the accusations against me would be laughable,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday. “It will be my pleasure to dismantle each of these accusations and show how they are not built just on fantasies, but also on lies.”

Chris Fearne, the current deputy prime minister who had been widely tipped to be appointed Malta’s next European Commissioner, has also been swept up in the scandal and is charged with fraud and misappropriation. He denies the allegations.

Edward Scicluna, the governor of the Central Bank of Malta and a former finance minister, faces the same charges. He too has denied wrongdoing. Keith Schembri, the former chief of staff to Mr Muscat, has been charged with soliciting bribes, money laundering and abuse of office. He also denies the charges. If found guilty, the men could each face up to 18 years in jail.

The scandal involves a deal drawn up by Mr Muscat’s Labour government in 2015 to hand over the management of three public hospitals to a private firm which had no experience in healthcare.

After less than two years, it sold the concession to another company without having made any of the investments it had pledged.

A court ruled that there had been “collusion” between the companies and government officials.

Those charged are expected to face court in the coming days.

‘It will be my pleasure to dismantle each of these accusations and show how they are built on fantasies’