The NGO Repubblika has claimed that recent stories involving Prime Minister Robert Abela and one of his clients are only the tip of the iceberg of a “career of illegitimate profits”, and that more stories will emerge of how Abela became a millionaire in 20 years.

The Times of Malta on Sunday had reported that Abela had a stake in a property deal back in 2018 which was eventually transferred to Christian Borg, a man recently charged with kidnapping. It has also been reported that Borg and his associates are being investigated by the police over suspected narcotics smuggling and money laundering. Abela was Borg's lawyer in the past.

Answering questions from journalists yesterday, Abela said that the report was ‘spin’, and said that it included “lies from the facts I had given.”  He said that the deal in question concerned a small plot of land in Zabbar.

Repubblika said that the reports concerning Robert Abela and his property transfers with Christian Borg, who currently stands accused of being part of an abduction earlier this month, are worrying.

It’s also worrying, they said, that to save his skin Abela is normalising his behaviour and saying that he had done nothing wrong, and instead attempting to intimidate journalists by accusing them of conspiring against him.

Repubblika said that the Prime Minister’s behaviour yesterday, where he was “evidently taken over by emotion and not in control of his intellectual faculties” and where he criticised journalists rather than answered their questions, put nobody’s mind at rest.

Repubblika claimed that what was uncovered is only one episode of a career of illegitimate profiting from Abela’s legal career.

The NGO said that they are not expecting much by wanting everyone to follow the minimum level of ethics, decency, loyalty to the country through paid taxes, and distance from criminals as opposed to conscious complicity with them.

“When we see that out of control reaction by the Prime Minister yesterday, we wonder what to anticipate what his reaction will be when there are more revelations about how he became a millionaire in less than 20 years while working in his father’s small legal firm,” the NGO said.

Repubblika said that for the second time in a row instead of a Prime Minister which administers the country, there is a Prime Minister whose primary function is to administer his own tarnished reputation.

The group said that Maltese citizens have every right to expect better from those who govern them.

Repubblika said that it would be reiterating these beliefs along with Occupy Justice and Manuel Delia during a vigil on 16 February at 18:30 in Valletta, where they will also be calling for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia.