A €26,000 report drawn up by a British firm to counter a 'rule of law' report from a European Parliament delegation was "not worth the paper it was written on", Opposition MP Simon Busuttil told parliament on Wednesday.

The 44-page report was sent to the European Parliament in response to the report drawn up by the delegation which had been sent to Malta in 2017.

The report was drawn up by British firm Bird & Bird.

It was an embarrassment for such a report, which questioned the legality of the EP delegation itself, to have been sent to the EP on behalf of the Maltese State, he said.

Read: Muscat's reaction to rule of law report 'disrespectful' - MEP

The report attempted to defend the actions of the Attorney General, claiming that he had no direct power to investigate but could only issue an “investigation order,” upon the presentation of prima facie evidence and not solely upon reports in the media.

As the chair of the FIAU, which had concluded its report with a “reasonable suspicion of money laundering” on the part of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, the AG had plenty of evidence to act upon, Dr Busuttil said.

Dr Busuttil concluded by pointing out that the report referred to the investigation into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in the past tense. He asked the government to clarify whether this meant that the investigation had effectively been halted, or whether it continued to pursue the identity of the mastermind between the assassination last October.

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