People must vote out ‘criminal clique’, Busuttil tells St Paul’s Bay

Simon Busuttil was welcomed to a fired-up audience in St Paul’s Bay, just an hour after revealing information that was handed to the Commissioner of Police in 2016 into a series of payments totalling €650,000 from Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri to the former managing director of the Allied Group, Adrian Hillman.

Busuttil said Malta was now under an international spotlight, and that voters were tasked to choose a Malta “heaving under the weight of corruption” or one that was ready to turn a new page in its history.

Busuttil said he will take to a magistrate investigating allegations of kickbacks against Keith Schembri, contents of the information given to the Commissioner of Police which shows Schembri made repeated payments to Hillman from 2011 to 2015. He said Schembri would transfer the money into a Gibraltarian company, then “launder it” by acquiring international bonds, and also said Schembri had a Credit Suisse account.

“What happens if on 3 June we send the message that we are ready to throw away our international reputation? What would happen to the financial services, gaming and property sectors,” Busuttil said, painting an ominous picture of the aftermath of a Labour victory.

“At this stage, there is nothing left but for voters to do what the police commissioner or Joseph Muscat did not do, to vote on 3 June first thing in the morning, and to choose Malta’s future.”

Busuttil claimed he felt “sick to the stomach” in relaying the details of the €650,000 payments Schembri passed on to Hillman.

“Schembri and Muscat are childhood friends, and Schembri is the man who stands behind Joseph Muscat. It wasn’t enough to have revealed that he had taken kickbacks on the sale of Maltese citizenship,” Busuttil said.

“Today we can say that Castille hosts a criminal clique,” the PN leader continued. “The worst thing is that the people who should be taking action against these crimes, knew about them but did nothing about it. How can one not be angry about it,” Busuttil said.

Busuttil referred to the University of Malta debate earlier in the day, where he accused Muscat of insulting students’ intelligence by defending the indefensible.

“People are not stupid, and that is why I am convinced that they will use their vote to take this country out of the dire straits it has found itself in,” Busuttil said.