Muammar Gaddafi had told Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi he considered Malta’s accession to the EU to be a “betrayal” when the two first met in 2004.

Dr Gonzi had just become leader of the Nationalist Party and Prime Minister in March of that year, just over a month before Malta formally became an EU member. During his first visit to Libya as Prime Minister, Dr Gonzi recalled yesterday he was greeted by a cold Col Gaddafi who told him that Malta “had betrayed its Arab brothers”.

Dr Gonzi was rebutting claims made by former Labour leader Alfred Sant who claimed that the PN’s campaign in favour of EU membership had been financed by the Libyan dictator.

He said Dr Sant had “zero credibility”, asking: “Has Alfred Sant forgotten that Gaddafi used to criticise us for abandoning the Arab family because he used to consider us part of the Arab world and not Europe?”

Dr Gonzi insisted that the present Labour leader, Joseph Muscat, had the duty to disassociate himself from Dr Sant’s allegations in the national interest. Labour should also declare whether it ever received money from Col Gaddafi or any of his organisations. These were issues of major importance because they put Malta’s credibility at stake, Dr Gonzi said. The Labour Party had, in the past, drawn Malta close to communist parties that collapsed along the years.

Tying in to the theme of Labour’s past, Dr Gonzi criticised Dr Muscat for reintroducing to his party people like former Tourism Minister Karmenu Vella and former Foreign Affairs Minister Alex Sceberras Trigona who, he said, Dr Sant had put aside.

“(Dr) Muscat reversed the little good that (Dr Sant) did,” the Prime Minister said, describing Dr Sceberras Trigona as the author of an embarrassing period in Malta’s history. Today, after a period of PN governments, the Maltese should be proud of their country and its achievements, Dr Gonzi said referring to the country’s involvement in the Libyan conflict.

Malta had taken a major risk when it refused landing permission to a plane carrying a crew suspected to be on a mission to take back the two Libyan pilots who had defected to Malta in February, he said. The pilots, who had landed in Malta in two Mirage fighters after refusing to bomb civilians on February 21, made it back home yesterday morning.

Dr Gonzi said that when the Maltese government received information that a small jet was on its way to Malta it immediately looked up the names of those on board and refused permission after they were found to form part of the Libyan Air Force. This was one of the major risks Malta had taken to do the right thing during the conflict, one in a series of difficult choices throughout the Libyan revolution, he explained.

“Malta was one of the first countries that condemned the atrocities and I told (former Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister) Abdelati Obeidi when we met to go back to Libya and persuade Gaddafi to stop these atrocities. Our country should learn from this and we should never be afraid of making courageous decisions” Dr Gonzi said.

In reaction, the Labour Party said that instead of acknowledging the consensual and responsible approach taken by those involved during this difficult period, the Prime Minister was again “taking a cheap shot at playing petty politics” regurgitating utterances dating back three decades.

“The Prime Minister’s problem is that the source of these claims is the same stating that Malta, under his predecessor, was a hub of Libyan terrorists. If he believes one he must believe the other too,” Labour said.

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