WATCH: Joseph Muscat Fainted Days Before Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Murder ‘Because Blood Pressure Was Low’
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he fainted at a public event a few days before the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia because his blood pressure was too low.
In a recent interview with TV personality Ben Camille, Muscat said that the incident, on 14th October 2017 at a reception at the Le Meridien Hotel, occurred a few months after he cut out sugar and red meat from his diet.
“It was a Saturday evening and I told Michelle [his wife Michelle Muscat] that I wasn’t feeling well,” Muscat recounted.
“I was used to having high blood pressure so I decided to take another pill. At the event, someone was giving a speech and I just fainted. I came to my senses a minute later and a doctor came to check me out.”
“I told him that it must have been my blood pressure and he said that while that was indeed the case, the problem wasn’t that my pressure was too high but that it was too low.”
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Muscat said that after the incident, doctors told him he no longer needed to take blood pressure pills as his weight had reached a sustainable level, a development he described as “life-changing”.
“What I thought was high blood pressure was actually low blood pressure and because I took one pill, it was like an overdose. The fact that I was no longer on medication changed my life though.”
Muscat’s fainting incident went unreported at the time, with the government choosing not to inform the public about it.
The Shift News reported on it in April 2018, quoting two eyewitnesses as saying the then Prime Minister “looked white as a sheet”.
In 2019, PN MP and Caruana Galizia family Jason Azzopardi brought up the fainting incident to imply that Muscat was aware in advance that the journalist was going to be assassinated.
“Remember: the day that Daphne was to be killed was the day that Joseph Muscat fainted. It was only due to a roadblock that it got postponed by 24 hours,” Azzopardi wrote back then. “Joseph Muscat has blood on his hands.”
Former Economy Minister Chris Cardona, who was also present at the reception, confirmed the incident in November 2020 when testifying at the public inquiry that was set up to look into the circumstances surrounding Caruana Galizia’s assassination.
He said Muscat had told him he hadn’t eaten all day.
Cover photo: Left: Joseph Muscat delivering at a speech during the 2017 event at the Le Meridien Hotel, Right: Muscat during his recent interview with Ben Camille
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