Television presenter John Bundy confirmed under oath this afternoon that it was Home Affairs Ministry chief-of-staff Silvio Scerri who ordered the termination of Norman Vella's deployment at PBS.

Mr Bundy testified before an Employment Commission that he happened to be at the ministry at the time when he heard Mr Scerri issue the order for Mr Vella to be returned to his job at the Immigration Department.

He said Mr Scerri was speaking to a certain "Anton" at the time, ostensibly PBS chief executive Anton Attard. (Mr Attard is denying that Mr Scerri ever spoke to him about this matter.)

Mr Bundy was called to testify after he told Mr Vella he had seen and heard Mr Scerri order his transfer from PBS.

The commission is hearing the case that Mr Vella, the former presenter of TVHemm, instituted against Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the Principal Permanent Secretary, Mario Cutajar, claiming political discrimination in the way he was re-deployed from PBS to the Immigration Department.

In his testimony today Mr Bundy said: “I met Norman Vella at the airport and told him not to continue blaming the Prime Minister or any other politicians because it was Silvio Scerri who took the decision and I heard him myself because I happened to be there at the time," he said.

Mr Bundy added that although they worked in the same field, he had never met Mr Vella before that time at the airport and had only seen him on TV.

Journalist Norma Saliba also testified, explaining how she was seconded to PBS from the Malta-EU Steering Action Committee following a call from PBS head of news Reno Bugeja who asked her whether she was interested in working for the station.

She confirmed that there was no call for applications.