The Nationalist Party yesterday lashed out at Labour leader Joseph Muscat’s criticism last Sunday that the government was “politicising” the Libyan issue, arguing in a statement that “Labour and Gaddafi were intimate bedfellows” and “blood brothers”.

Dr Muscat had recalled that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was the most recent Prime Minister in the Western world to have visited Muammar Gaddafi.

The PN said “far from politicising the conflict, the PN – never in cahoots with Gaddafi and his brutal regime – at the first visible signs of the Libyan ‘Spring’ six months ago immediately condemned the brutal ways and means employed by Gaddafi to try and silence the popular demonstrations against his regime”.

Conversely, the PL had only broken its silence on the issue after six months, and not before it was clear to all and sundry that Gaddafi had lost complete control of the country.

The PN called on Dr Muscat to come clean and explain in detail the intimate relationship which since the 1970s Labour has had with the Gaddafi regime.

In a counter statement, Labour said nobody had to remind the PN who boasted about the intimate relationship with Muammar Gaddafi just a few days prior to the uprising.

It also held that Dr Muscat had made no reference to politics during his short address but was just replying to journalists’ questions.

Reacting again, the PN called on Dr Muscat to explain his visit to Libya in 2008.