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Updated 10.01pm - Added reference to Brian Tonna statement
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had lied five times in less than 24 hours in his attempt to pull off a “colossal cover-up” of the truth, Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil said this afternoon.
In a hastily called press conference, Dr Busuttil accused his rival of intentional misdirection in an attempt to muddy the waters and confuse people.
READ: Muscat says documents have been 'fabricated'
He ran through a list of five “lies” he said the Prime Minister had been caught in over the past day:
1. The Prime Minister’s claim that “no company in Panama can have an address in San Gwann.” This, Dr Busuttil said, was simply untrue and belied by the ICIJ’s Panama Papers database. Egrant’s San Gwann address, he added, was the same as that of Panama companies owned by Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.
2. Dr Muscat’s claim that Egrant could not have been “sold” to his wife Michelle in August 2015 if it had already been “sold” to Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna two years prior. “A declaration of trust is not a document of sale,” the PN leader said. “It simply shows who is the owner of the company.”
3.