Minister Carmelo Abela on Friday night filed an urgent libel case against Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi after the latter’s allegations that Abela was involved in a heist at HSBC in 2010.
The Registry of the courts of law was opened “urgently” on Friday for Abela to also submit an affidavit in which he affirms that the allegations made on Facebook by Azzopardi, who is also the Caruana Galizia family lawyer in cases involving the assassination of the journalist.
Azzopardi claimed that Abela was the “mastermind” of the robbery and was promised €300,000.
In his suit, Abela said that Azzopardi’s claims were “criminally slanderous”.
In his affidavit, he says that the police never questioned him about the robbery, adding that what Azzopardi wrote was a malicious fabrication.
In an explosive Facebook post, the PN MP said that he was reacting after being told that Abela had written about him and tried to insult him with “tomb of Christ” jibes – a reference to a scandal last year where Azzopardi was said to have gone to Israel and stayed at a hotel paid for by Tumas Group.
Abela’s post earlier today came about after Azzopardi himself posted an article from 2015 which alleged that Abela had used government workers in 2015 for works in his own personal home - a claim which the Minister denied. Azzopardi's post was made after reports emerged that PN MP Toni Bezzina was set to be charged by police over similar allegations.
Abela's application