Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat claimed in Parliament last night that correspondence via e-mail between him and a Church radio journalist had been hacked.
Dr Muscat raised a breach of privilege and called for the Speaker’s protection after demanding an investigation into the behaviour of the Nationalist Party on the case, which involved RTK journalist Sabrina Agius. He said this led to the erosion of democracy.
Speaking at the beginning of the sitting, Dr Muscat called on the Speaker to investigate how persons who enjoyed the confidence of the Prime Minister tried to entice journalists from the independent media to publish the correspondence. This included references to injustices at the place of work, suggestions for parliamentary questions, information on alleged irregularities by government entities and the Malta Information Technology Agency (which handled e-mails by and to MPs), the situation within RTK, the behaviour of certain PBS presenters, criticism by Ms Agius of the Labour media, the divorce campaign and her career.
In this exchange of e-mails, he had encouraged Ms Agius to apply for work with all media, including The Times and PBS.
The spin which the PN tried to give had been that he tried to help this person to land a job with the entities mentioned. Dr Muscat said that those involved in broadcasting could confirm that, contrary to what others had done, he had never interfered with regard to the engagement or dismissal of any personnel. It was ridiculous to even think that he had some influence at The Times or PBS.
Dr Muscat said he had nothing to hide but was not tabling the correspondence out of respect for the journalist and also because she was contesting a case of political discrimination in court.
He called on the Speaker to investigate because this was a matter of grave concern. After the independent media decided not to publish the correspondence, which was acquired by illicit means, the PN decided to hand it over to its broadcasting station.
Dr Muscat said that while visiting an IT company yesterday, a reporter from the PN broadcasting media asked him whether he denied that he had tried to embed journalists with the independent media. A number of people, including Labour MP Michael Farrugia, had witnessed this. The PN had wished that other media would publish the story.
He said that those who obtained the correspondence did so illicitly through espionage, by hacking his correspondence, that of Ms Agius or both.
In the UK and in other countries such a matter led to the resignation of those involved or those who knew about it. He, therefore, requested the Speaker to investigate this case of espionage of correspondence through which he was doing his duty to draft parliamentary questions in order to allow taxpayers’ money to be abused in a number of authorities.
Dr Muscat said this was not the first case of its kind. Some years ago, thousands of passwords of MPs, members of the judiciary and government personnel had been lost. He recalled how his predecessor had convincingly claimed that his e-mails bad been hacked.
In 2009, it had been revealed that the PN had set up a network through which persons contacting ministries and government departments had their details noted, Dr Muscat said.
He referred to the recent case where MPs Evarist Bartolo and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando said that a telephone conversation between them had been tapped. The two MPs were not even called to give evidence during the investigation that followed.
The medical record of a person criticising the PN had been presented in court. It was later revealed that this information had been offered by the Prime Minister’s head of secretariat, Edgar Galea Curmi, to other journalists.
A week ago, a former judge concluded that he could not exclude that the police had hastened procedures involving a private person in the Cyrus Engerer case after the latter had resigned from the PN.
This latest case of spying had taken place after Ms Agius had taken the unprecedented step of taking RTK to court alleging political discrimination when a former PN employee was chosen as the station’s head of news.
Dr Muscat said he had always refrained from raising such issues even when details of his wife’s and his own medical records had been published. He could not do this any longer because democracy was being eroded. It was clear there was a parallel secret service that was spying on private citizens, journalists and politicians to hinder their work or even to blackmail them.
However, no one would stop him or the Labour Party from doing their duty.
Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg said the government and the PN had nothing to hide and did not object to any investigation. He denied any allegation that anyone from the government side had done anything illegal. Allegations had to be investigated to check whether they were true or not.
The Speaker, Michael Frendo, reserved the right to give a ruling on the breach of privilege complaint in another sitting.