[WATCH] PN media grills Abela, former HSBC manager, over Koħħu claims

Carmelo Abela was placed on the spot by the Nationalist Party media over claims by Vincent Muscat ‘il-Koħħu’, one of three men accused of having assassinated the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, that he can name a Labour politician whom he believes helped plan a heist on the HSBC Malta headquarters in 2010.

Abela was a former manager at HSBC until taking up formal government employment in 2014 and later becoming minister.

Abela appeared reluctant to, as the PN-owned Net News journalist asked him, “condemn” the as-yet-alleged Labour politician who could be implicated in the 2010 HSBC heist.

Vincent Muscat is seeking a pardon for information he has on various crimes preceding his role in the assassination of Caruana Galizia. Muscat has however not identified the man to the police, and instead shared details of the 2010 attempted heist, in which he was involved.

The claim first broke Nationaist MP Jason Azzopardi, who is lawyer to the Caruana Galizia family, claimed on 103FM in an interview with Andrew Azzopardi that the Prime Minister was aware of the information Muscat gave police in March 2020.

The Net News journalist asked Abela whether he would “condemn the minister”, but Abela chose to refer the journalist to statements made by the Prime Minister to MaltaToday on Monday morning.

Abela refused to give any inkling of the claims that Muscat linked a Cabinet minister to the 2010 HSBC heist.The PM instead hit out at Azzopardi, and said any action he would take on Muscat’s claims would only be on advice of the police commissioner.

“[Jason Azzopardi] is potentially committing a serious crime in revealing information he allegedly possesses, and is disrupting police investigations in doing so… Instead of letting police carry out their work and conducting their investigations on every crime, people do everything in their power to disrupt investigations," he said.

Asked to give his personal views rather than the PM’s, Carmelo Abela once again referred the journalist to the comments made by Robert Abela. “When the PM speaks, he is not only giving his personal views, but he is also speaking on behalf of the government,” he said.

READ ALSO: Jason Azzopardi ‘shocked’ by PM’s reaction to minister's alleged involvement in HSBC bank heist