Finance Minister Tonio Fenech’s “attacks” on oil trader-turned-State witness George Farrugia were tantamount to intimid-ation and had to stop, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday morning.

Cabinet had agreed to grant Mr Farrugia a presidential pardon in exchange for his full testimony, Dr Muscat said, and it now had to let him divulge what he knew without trying to intimidate him.

“The Government’s reaction seems to imply that Mr Farrugia shouldn’t mention any politicians,” he said, as he asked whether Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi would continue to defend Mr Fenech “at all costs”.

Labour MPs Evarist Bartolo and Chris Cardona in the morning claimed that Mr Farrugia gave the minister a clock worth more than €5,000; an allegation Mr Fenech is vehemently denying and is taking legal action over.

But this did not stop Dr Muscat from questioning the minister’s credibility, saying Mr Fenech was no stranger to bribery allegations.

The PL leader said Mr Fenech’s former private secretary had claimed, while under oath, that money from bribes he took to “fix” people’s tax returns had been pumped into the minister’s electoral campaign.

Dr Muscat also mentioned another case, in which a man had claimed that renovation works carried out on Mr Fenech’s house were payment in kind for ministerial help in a hotel bid. Mr Fenech has always denied the claim.

Accusations levelled at Labour’s financial administrator Joe Cordina – who has stepped down after it was revealed that he was one of three directors of a fiduciary company connected with the Enemalta oil scandal – were simply an attempt by Mr Fenech to deflect attention away from himself, Dr Muscat claimed.

Hours before news of Mr Farrugia’s €5,000 gift claim surfaced on Thursday, Mr Fenech held a press conference in which he revealed that Mr Cordina was a director in the fiduciary company which had owned Aikon Ltd, the company involved in the oil commissions’ scandal, before Mr Farrugia had taken it over.

Dr Muscat said the minister’s claims were also an indirect attack on the Prime Minister’s son David, who had been involved in a fiduciary company implicated in a €15 million corruption scandal at Italian firm Maugeri.

“Let me be clear. I don’t think the Prime Minister’s son had anything to do with the wrongdoing. But by Mr Fenech’s yardstick, he is implicated. It seems to me the Government is drowning and clutching at straws,” Dr Muscat said.

Earlier, Mr Bartolo and Dr Cardona told a press conference that the minister should be investigated after pardoned oil trader Mr Farrugia told the police he gave him a traditional Maltese Tal-Lira clock.

The two MPs based their accusations on information they said they received from an unnamed source who said Mr Farrugia told the police he gave Mr Fenech a wall clock soon after Enemalta was transferred to the minster’s portfolio in 2010.

Additional reporting by Kurt Sansone.