“Know this Minister: I know what you and your boss know and have known for over a year. I know you know. And you know I know. When the time is ripe, the envelope will be opened”, PN MP Jason Azzopardi tweeted, in response to answers that Justice Minister Owen Bonnici gave to this newsroom last Friday.

Azzopardi’s reaction comes after Bonnici told The Malta Independent last Friday that Azzopardi is “privileged” due to the fact that he is 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, and invited him to “step forward and speak to the authorities” if he knew something instead of “throwing mud”.

“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.

Bonnici was asked for his reaction to a statement that Azzopardi made while speaking at the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly last Wednesday, wherein the PN MP 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.

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.

Questions sent to Azzopardi asking what he meant by his statement on Twitter, whether it implied that he knew who ordered the killing of Caruana Galizia, and whether he had gone to the Police with this information remained unanswered at the time of going to print, while attempts to contact him by phone were also unsuccessful.