Former OPM official Neville Gafà has stated that he has never met, spoken to, nor has he shared any exchange of messages, e-mails, or phone calls with deceased PN party stalwart Karl Gouder.

"I never knew the late Karl Gouder," Gafà wrote on his website, "We never met, we never spoke, there was never an exchange of messages, e-mails or phone calls."

The former government official expressed his condolences to Gouder's family on Wednesday morning. On his blog, Gafà defended an earlier blog entry he has since taken down, saying it was a "simple political commentary based on facts." He said that this post was taken down out of respect and prudence, and not because there was something inherently wrong with it.

The article taken down was about Karl Gouder being co-opted twice into Parliament throughout his political career, in which he claimed that Gouder is the only person in this country's history to be co-opted as an MP twice; Gafà called this text a "fair comment about a political person." On this point, he added that he may re-upload this article "to burst the bubbles of misleading speculation."

Gafà posted this article onto his website yesterday, two days after Gouder declared his interest to run for PN's General Secretary role and on the same day that Gouder was found dead in Valletta. 

On Tuesday evening, blogger Mark Camilleri wrote to his social media followers to contact him "if you have the threats that Neville Gafà sent to Karl Gouder via mobile [phone], please send me everything." 

The former official within the Office of the Prime Minister, Gafa, then published the comments about his lack of contact with Gouder on Wednesday.