The Labour Party had access to key documents about the Enemalta corruption scandal for two and a half years but kept it hidden until the election campaign, according to Finance Minister Tonio Fenech.

He reiterated that Joe Cordina, who resigned on Thursday as Labour’s financial administrator, was “behind” the oil scandal.

Mr Fenech said various Labour exponents were part of a civil court case involving the Farrugia family. E-mails and other recently revealed documents had emerged from the case.

He said the brother of Labour candidate David Farrugia Sacco worked on the IT audit that began amid allegations that George Farrugia was siphoning funds from his brothers’ company.

Dr Farrugia Sacco had said in a recent press conference that his brother, Stephen, was not involved in the 2010 audit in any way.

Showing a clip of the press conference, Mr Fenech quoted Dr Farrugia Sacco saying “no, no, no” to questions about whether his brother was involved.

“The truth is: yes, yes, yes,” said the minister, quoting a court document showing that the person appointed to carry out the audit, Geoffrey Farrugia, worked “in conjunction with” Stephen Farrugia Sacco.

“That is the first lie,” he said. Turning to Mr Cordina, Mr Fenech said that the company in which he was involved was deemed to be an “accomplice to the fraudulent activity” of Aikon Ltd.

“Intershore Fiduciary Services Ltd, as director of Aikon Limited, was an accomplice to the fraudulent activity of Mr and Ms George Farrugia since they should have known that Aikon Ltd was in direct competition with the business of Powerplan Ltd,” a document read out by Mr Fenech said.

Mr Fenech said that another Labour candidate, Manuel Mallia, played a “major” role as legal counsel to the investigative audit and wrote to the three directors of Intershore Fiduciary Services to inform them of their responsibility in the case.

Dr Mallia had told a press conference that he had no involvement in the investigative audit, which was a “technical issue” on which he did not have “any knowledge”.

“He had no knowledge but he wrote to them to say they were committing fraudulent activity,” said Mr Fenech, adding this was not a minor case regarding a few thousand euros but involved €8.6 million.

Interestingly, he said, the lawyer who signed the case against Mr Cordina was Dr Farrugia Sacco.

Mr Fenech questioned how Labour had supposedly known nothing about the case when so many of its officials were involved.

He also wondered why the story had emerged through the independent media.

Mr Fenech said that, in the past days, six Labour exponents had lied: Labour leader Joseph Muscat and deputy leader Toni Abela (regarding a case of drugs at the party’s Safi club), Dr Farrugia Sacco and Dr Mallia on the case of Mr Farrugia and MPs Evarist Bartolo and Chris Cardona on the supposed “€5,000 gift” the minister was meant to have received.

“These allegations are simply an attempt at mud-slinging on the eve of an election. We will not waste people’s time on these ridiculous attacks,” said Labour in a press statement.

Dr Farrugia Sacco and Dr Mallia will be replying this morning to Mr Fenech’s allegations, according to a press call issued last night.

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