Concerns have been raised that details of a police search at disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s home could have come from within the police itself.

Well-informed sources told Lovin Malta that Muscat was leaked the information of the raid, raising concerns over the legitimacy of evidence seized by investigators.

“It seemed to me that it was all a little bit staged,” one source within the police department told the newsroom.

Muscat even had a file full of documents prepared for police when they arrived at his home. He claimed that this file was prepared in November 2021.

He also told The Times of Malta, who interviewed him in his home shortly after the search, that he was only “half-surprised” by police descending on his home, claiming that the “needless theatrics”were designed to humilate him.

Muscat has since claimed that “someone within the PN” tipped him off, naming Jason Azzopardi. But sources entirely dismissed the idea as an attempt to deflect from the actual leak. The leak, police sources, could have come from within the department itself but stopped short of saying it outright.

Malta’s Police have faced allegations over major leaks before particularly in the cases involving Yorgen Fenech and the Maksar brothers.

Financial crimes police entered Muscat’s Burmarrad home at around 7am and spent some three hours then, seizing his phone, as well as the phones of his wife Michelle and their two daughters.

Muscat said the police asked him for information related to money in “consultancy fees” he had received from Accutor AG, the Swiss company which had worked with Steward Healthcare, the company which purchased the hospital concession from VGH.

It was revealed by The Times of Malta that Muscat was paid €60,000 from Accutor AG and Spring X Media, two Swiss companies owned by Pakistani lawyer Wasay Bhatti, in the early months of 2020, shortly after his resignation as Prime Minister.

Accutor AG had received €3.6 million from Steward Healthcare during the company’s takeover of the hospital contract from Vitals Global Healthcare.

Who do you think leaked the information?