Repubblika accuses Attorney General of protecting Joseph Muscat

Repubblika is accusing Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg of instructing the State Advocate not to appeal a recent decree that allowed former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat early access to the magisterial inquiry, which suggested prosecution for bribery and money laundering.

This emerges from a judicial protest filed by the NGO before the First Hall of the Civil Court on Friday afternoon.

It states that earlier on Friday, the AG had directed the State Advocate, which is representing the AG as legal counsel, despite the office having been set up to be autonomous from the AG, “not to request the permission of the First Hall of the Civil Court […] to appeal the decree handed down yesterday”.

The NGO said it was strongly opposing the privileged manner in which the AG was treating Muscat, which the AG “was not even attempting to hide”.

It contrasted this treatment with the fact that the AG had already twice refused to provide Repubblika with a copy of the conclusions of the inquiry. The inquiry was started at Repubblika’s request in 2019.

The strongly-worded judicial protest accuses the AG of giving a hand to criminals and of “not even trying to hide her efforts to help Muscat sabotage the prosecution’s case against Joseph Muscat and the other defendants”.

Today, the NGO says, the AG had ordered the State Advocate not to attempt to appeal yesterday’s decree.

“Instead, early this morning, [the AG] had already given the order to make photocopies of every document where Joseph Muscat is mentioned in the acts of the magisterial inquiry and this same morning […] she deposited every document […] where Joseph Muscat is mentioned, including documentary evidence of the money laundering of Muscat’s cut of the VGH contracts, amounting to millions of euros.”

Repubblika accused the AG of colluding with Muscat to give him an illegal advantage and discriminating against the NGO, “on a grave and unprecedented issue of national interest,” and called upon her to release the full conclusions of the inquiry to the public.