The crime committed by Labour MEP candidate Cyrus Engerer is by its very nature “homophobic”, Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil charged.
“The Prime Minister’s champion on civil rights and the rights of gay people has been found guilty of a crime, which in itself is homophobic.
“This is another example of the government’s hypocrisy,” Dr Busuttil said in a brief comment to Times of Malta.
He was reacting to news that Mr Engerer had been given a suspended jail term after being found guilty of sending pornographic pictures of his former boyfriend to his employers to spite him after the two split up acrimoniously in December 2009.
Dr Busuttil said the case, which was initiated shortly after the former PN deputy mayor for Sliema switched sides to Labour in 2011, illustrated the Prime Minister’s lack of political judgement, seeing as he welcomed him to the party and allowed him to contest on the Labour ticket in spite of the pending court case.
Mr Engerer would have never been allowed to contest on the PN ticket in similar circumstances, he said.
“Now it’s too late for the Prime Minister to fix his mistake. The misfortune is that the Prime Minister always realises his mistakes when it is too late and the ones to pay are the people,” he said.
Asked if he was expecting Mr Engerer to resign as chairman of the government’s consultative LGBT council, Dr Busuttil said: “I expect the Prime Minister to do what is expected of him and to assume political responsibility for this bad judgement. The responsibility is his.”
The party also kept up the pressure on the case stating that the Prime Minister had confirmed he was unable to distinguish right from wrong. It said the Prime Minister’s statement, that Mr Engerer had chosen to drop out, showed that Dr Muscat continued to lend his support to someone who had been found guilty of a serious crime.
Speaking last night, Dr Busuttil added that it was only after Mr Engerer himself had decided to withdraw his candidature that he bowed out of the contest and he was never requested to do so by the Prime Minister.
Dr Muscat’s “champion of gay rights” had been found guilty of a criminal offence against a gay person.