If PN MP Jason Azzopardi knows something about the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia then he should speak to authorities rather than throwing mud, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici told The Malta Independent.
Speaking at the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly on Wednesday, Azzopardi said that it was being said that the person responsible for ordering Caruana Galizia’s assassination has access to certain high corridors of power in Malta.
Asked for his reaction to this statement, Bonnici said that Azzopardi is “privileged” due to the fact that, aside from being an Opposition MP, he is also the lawyer of the Caruana Galizia family in the procedures which are ongoing against the three Maltese people charged with the murder of the journalist.
“He is privileged in that he has access to all the information and documents, and I understand that there is good collaboration between him and the prosecution, so he has the biggest opportunity to, if he knows something, instead of throwing mud step forward and speak to the authorities to prove them”, Bonnici said.
“It is easy to throw mud; what’s difficult is to prove it. He has the biggest opportunity – more than I do since he is the parte civile lawyer – so that if he knows something he steps forward and speaks”, Bonnici said.
Azzopardi’s statement was made at the Council of Europe as the council’s Parliamentary Assembly approved a damning report which calls for a public inquiry into the journalist’s murder to be appointed within the next three months, rejecting in turn a set of amendments proposed by Labour MPs Manuel Mallia and Rosianne Cutajar.
Asked for his reaction to the adoption of the report and to the fact that the government’s amendments had been rejected, Bonnici first noted that an amendment put forward by the group that Azzopardi was collaborating with for the council to impose a monitoring mechanism on Malta was rejected.
“The impression that the Council of Europe approved everything that Jason Azzopardi and his collaborators proposed and nothing from the government is incorrect”, he said.
He noted however that it is a fact that – despite inaccuracies, mistakes and notions which are incorrect – the report was adopted and that Malta will respect what the Council says. He noted that the Prime Minister had, on Thursday, made a statement about the way forward, one which was correct and which supported in full.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat left the door open for the appointment of a public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, but said that he will definitely not shoulder responsibility if such an inquiry affects the outcome of the currently ongoing case against three persons who were arrested for the murder.
“This report gives a deadline of three months – we are a sovereign country but I am the first one who refuses to put my country in a collision course with a European institution, and that’s why I am going to keep taking advice from the Attorney General to assess the situation”, Muscat told journalists on Thursday.
“I definitely will not be the person to shoulder responsibility if a public inquiry and its process ends up destroying the current case against the three arrested persons; I will not shoulder that responsibility – I am definitely not ready to do that”, he said.
Muscat took aim at the rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt on Thursday, and Bonnici also spared no punches, saying that he respects the Dutch MP much less than he does the Council of Europe.
“He was very biased and his track record is not that nice either; if you look at what he said on the MH-17 plane crash you can conclude that he does not have a great track record, and this report has so much inaccuracies and things which are false and incorrect that unfortunately I can say that while I respect the Council of Europe, I respect Pieter Omtzigt much less”, Bonnici said.