Muscat distances himself from Toni Abela's decision

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat has admitted to making a mistake in not reporting the drugs find at the PL Safi club in 2009 to the police.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Muscat denied ever lying outright about the case. Muscat had initially denied any knowledge of the drugs find when the Toni Abela recordings first surfaced.

In one of two recordings, Abela is heard recounting an incident where an illegal substance, euphemistically referred to as 'blokka bajda' (white block, or white powder), was found in a club kitchen and then disposed off in a rubbish bin.

Abela is heard saying he did not report the incident to the police because the evidence had been disposed of, and filing a report would have got the club's president in unnecessary trouble.

Muscat's line of defence is that whenever he was questioned by reporters about the drugs case, he automatically assumed that they were referring to potential wrongdoing at the Attard band club, the location where the Toni Abela's conversation was recorded.

When questioned by The Sunday Times about whether he knew of the Safi case, Muscat said "Yes, but I didn't think that anyone was asking about this case."

Matters came to a head when the Nationalist party published a letter revealing that the Labour leader was aware of the Safi drugs incident since 2009, one month after it happened.

Muscat admitted that were Toni Abela a candidate for the coming general election, his position would no longer be tenable. He also said that he would have accepted Abela's resignation were it submitted.

"When someone submits their resignation it is obvious they would have thought about it. So if a resignation is submitted, it should be accepted," Muscat told The Sunday Times.

Muscat distanced himself from the decision taken by Abela, stating, "When I delegate a task, I leave things in the hands of the person responsible. This is how I work. My job is not to overturn their decisions."

He also said that Toni Abela took the decisions "as the person politically and administratively responsible for what happened at the club."

Muscat took the line that the "mistake" happened back in 2009, in what was his first year of leadership. Asked by The Sunday Times whether other cases involving drugs have come to light since then, the opposition leader is evasive.

"Not that I remember. What I know is that whenever reports reached us, we passed them on immediately to the police," Muscat says.