As the Labour Party continued to push for the sacking of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the government and the Nationalist Party have insisted he did nothing wrong.

Head of secretariat Edgar Galea Curmi has admitted making a phone call to Police Commissioner John Rizzo about the case involving PN defector Cyrus Engerer’s father. He asked the Commissioner to explain to the suspect’s lawyer that the case was not politically motivated, something Mr Rizzo felt he “should not do”.

“The ball is now in the Prime Minister’s court to sack Mr Galea Curmi. If the Prime Minister continues to postpone this decision he will show uncertainty and indecisiveness when he should be showing that interference at this level is unacceptable,” the PL said, questioning Lawrence Gonzi’s credibility. But the government and the PN insisted yesterday the phone call did not amount to interference, quoting Mr Rizzo as having said just this.

“I did not feel there was interference,” Mr Rizzo had said at one point during his two-hour press conference on Tuesday.

However, Mr Rizzo also said he felt he “should not do” what Mr Galea Curmi was asking him to do because it would blur the line between politics and police work.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said there was no contradiction between Mr Galea Curmi’s phone call and the comments made by Dr Gonzi on Tuesday who insisted the government did not interfere in police work.

The Nationalist Party accused Labour of manipulating what the Commissioner said to get out of the web in which Joseph Muscat had got himself tangled.