Former Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat is among several former and current officials on the Mediterranean island facing criminal charges in a corruption scandal over a scheme to sell public hospitals to a private company. The charges, which mainly relate to money laundering, were brought by prosecutors on Monday but the hospital deal itself dates back to 2015 and has been the subject of multiple civil court rulings, audits, and investigative reports. Muscat has denied wrongdoing, writing in a Facebook post that if the charges were not so serious, they would be “laughable”. Experts said th…