Prime Minister Robert Abela has said that he has full faith in Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg and simultaneously blasted the Nationalist Party for its “dangerous” remarks which he says may jeopardise any potential future appeal on the jury trial of Yorgen Fenech.

Fenech was acquitted by a jury of complicity and conspiracy in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia last Wednesday.  The prosecution has a 15-working-day window in order to decide whether to file an appeal or not – something which, Abela said, the Attorney General’s office is considered.

Speaking in an interview with veteran journalist Reno Bugeja on the occasion of the Labour Party’s first 100 days in government, Abela said that his reaction after the verdict and even now is one of prudence and caution, especially as the term within which the Attorney General can choose to file an appeal is still open.

Abela confirmed that the AG’s office is considering filing an appeal, which by law would have to be based on an alleged error in a point of law rather than on how the jurors reached the verdict itself.

“It is crucial that in this moment, the Attorney General’s office is given support – not that we see obscenities where a prominent PN MP says that the AG must resign, and that she is corrupt,” Abela said.

He said that he has “full faith” in Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg and her office.

“The PN’s ugly narrative has taken the party back to 2017; to the times of Simon Busuttil,” he said.  Abela also said that the PN’s position also contrasts with that of the Caruana Galizia family and of the NGO Repubblika – although he did not mention Repubblika by name,

He said that this NGO and the family had praised the prosecution and how it put forward its case and said that the evidence should have been enough to reach a conviction – though Abela here specified that this is a position that he could not take owing to his role.

“In its first reaction, the PN went with a completely opposite thesis which is precisely the line that the defence followed,” Abela said.

He said that the government had reacted with responsibility and maturity, while the PN had acted in a totally partisan manner which risks interfering with the work of prosecutors.

Abela denied a suggestion that with Fenech’s acquittal, the situation with regards to Caruana Galizia and her family’s quest for justice had reverted back to 2017, pointing out that five people have been found guilty in connection with the case.

“If [the case] is to be appealed, the judicial process has not concluded yet.  Every word can interfere with an appeal and the work connected to it,” he said.

Pointed out that it’s a tough road to appeal a jury verdict, Abela said that there have been appeals in the past but it’s up to the prosecution to see whether it has issues which fall within the parameters that would make an appeal possible.

He said that the PN, particularly its leader Alex Borg, had flipflopped across several different positions.

“At one point, he said that the decision of the jurors reflected the evidence that they had in front of them.  He immediately expressed a position on the verdict, which means that he is against any appeal that the AG’s office may file,” Abela said.

“There isn’t a debate on this.  I won’t express an understanding one way or the other [on the verdict] – I have my subjective opinion, but if I express it I might influence what may come,” he continued.

Abela said that Borg’s words are perhaps the fruit of inexperience or immaturity or because he is struggling to understand the circumstances, but either way they are “dangerous precedents.”

Asked whether the government had given direction to the AG’s office to appeal, Abela said that the office is fully independent and it will be up to the AG and her team to decide whether to proceed with an appeal or not.

He also referred to another PN statement: that the police investigation into testimonies from the trial cannot be neutral because Glenn Bedingfield – who in the past had written a harsh blog against Caruana Galizia – is Home Affairs Minister.

“As if the minister carries out the investigation himself… but in the mind of the PN’s leader this is how the institutions work.  He cannot even comprehend how these institutions work, or else he’s projecting how they would work if he was to be in government,” Abela said.

Asked whether there should be any reforms in the trial by jury system, Abela said that the jury system – even in the Caruana Galizia case – has found people guilty before, and also resulted in acquittals.

He was non-committal in his answer, saying that expressing his opinion one way or the other would be akin to expressing his opinion on the verdict.

“If I say we need to reform the system, then it means I disagree with the verdict; if I say that we do not, then it’s the other way around,” he said.

“At the moment, there is a 15-day window for an appeal to be filed and there shouldn’t be knee-jerk reactions one way or the other.  The AG must be allowed to do her job, and then depending on that, we can speak further,” he added.

Finally, Bugeja asked why Abela had never asked his predecessor Joseph Muscat what he wanted to get off his chest about the case, to which Abela said that Muscat is the one who has to answer those questions and he has said that he would be willing to do so.

Switching to the PL’s first 100 days in the new legislature, Abela noted a number of reforms that the government had already introduced or filed in Parliament to be discussed, including to IVF legislation, and to planning laws.

He said that a tender for a new sound stage at the Malta Film Studios would be issued on Monday, and also said that the government would be pushing for Gozo to have its own backup electricity generation system which would be used in an instance that there is a cable failure between Malta and Gozo, as there was a week ago.

Abela was also asked about the topic of trade schools, which he chose to term more as vocational schools.  He said that he would not condition what the ultimate decision would be, but insisted that no child can be left behind.

Finally, asked about overtourism and overpopulation, Abela said that the message with the introduction of on-the-spot fines is that Malta is a hospitable place but it is also a place where people must abide by the rules.

He said, however, that fomenting the idea that there is too much tourism can give a mortal wound to the sector and leave enormous repercussions, so the solution is to control the sector as much as possible.