Shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi insisted this morning that court testimony published by his government counterpart in an attempt to discredit him actually proved that he had not met Zaren Vassallo in the Lowenbrau land transfer deal.

Earlier today, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici published court evidence, taken from the case instituted by Zaren Vassallo against Marsovin. Vassallo, who had bought the Qormi land from Marsovin, took the latter to court after it emerged that the original contract was abusive and he was asked by the government to pay for the mistake.

In the testimony Mr Vassallo referred to a meeting he had had with the “Minister responsible for the Lands Department.”  Jason Azzopardi has insisted that he was not the minister responsible for lands at the time. In March 2011, when the alleged meeting took place, Azzopardi was Parliamentary Secretary under Minister Tonio Fenech. Dr Azzopardi was sworn in as minister on 6 January 2012.

Dr Bonnici said this morning there was no doubt of political interference in a deal that saw a piece of land sold for a measly €700,000. “Jason Azzopardi has denied, for the past two weeks, having met with Zaren Vassallo and promised a compromise. This is not hearsay or a fake affidavit, like Azzopardi claimed, but sworn testimony by Mr Vassallo himself. What was this compromise which led to Vassallo paying for the land at 1990 values in 2012?”

Dr Bonnici said Jason Azzopardi had “lost his cool’ during Xarabank because he was caught lying. “Jason Azzopardi has been boasting about how, as the person responsible he had taken legal action against Mr Vassallo. Now he is claiming that he was not the minister responsible at the time.” The minister said that Azzopardi had signed the 2011 contract but now he wanted everyone to believe that he was not the one who met with Mr Vassallo.

“If it is true that Mr Vassallo was not referring to Jason Azzopardi then this story is much bigger and Tonio Fenech is also involved. This means that Simon Busuttil has two problems, not one.”

Reacting this afternoon, Dr Azzopardi said the document exonerated him. “The document refers to the minister for lands. I was not the minister for lands then.

The PN MP said Bonnici’s bubble had burst and the minister had been caught lying and should resign.

“Developments over the past 48 hours have shown how Dr Bonnici is not only a liar and a fake politician but is only in politics for personal vendettas and hatred.”

“Bonnici has been insisting that he had a declaration which had not yet been seen by the Auditor General. Now it turns out that this declaration was part of the court evidence in the case instituted by Vassallo against Marsovin. The Auditor General says in page 46 of his report that he has seen all court testimony and has still concluded that there was no political interference in the process.”

Dr Azzopardi said the Justice Minister should apologise and resign. If not, the Prime Minister should take up that task. “The Prime Minister should now tell us whether it is acceptable that the Justice Minister has lied about me for the past two weeks and has used language that is built on personal hatred against those who uncover cases of corruption by the most corrupt government in history.”

Instead of carrying out his duties as Justice Minister, Owen Bonnici was resorting to personal attacks against those who uncovered cases of corruption. “No European minister holds press conferences every week to attack his adversary. Bonnici is a minister only in name. His only real work is to act as a weapon in the hands of a corrupt clique.”

Azzopardi said Deborah Schembri, the Parliamentary Secretary for Lands, had also been part of the character assassination attempts. Earlier this week, during a TV debate, she had implied that people had seen Azzopardi at the Qormi site with Mr Vassallo. But the PN MP insisted that this was also a lie and that Dr Schembri had panicked when she was challenged to prove her allegations.