Azzopardi’s mea culpa: ‘I should have paid Tel Aviv Hilton bill in full’

The Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi has admitted he should have paid his Hilton Tel Aviv bill in full, when in March 2017 he allowed a three-day stay to be paid by Tumas magnate Ray Fenech.

Fenech is the uncle of former Tumas CEO Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind in the Caruana Galizia assassination.

Azzopardi’s request for an investigation by the Standard Commissioner was refuted earlier on Tuesday after George Hyzler said the event, which occurred before the appointment of his office, could not be investigated.

Hyzler has however proposed strict transparency rules on gifts to MPs that exceed the value of €250.

“When the cashier of the Hilton in Tel Aviv told me on my checking out in 2017 that the room charges were already taken care from the Malta side, I should have insisted on paying the full bill and not just pay for taxes and extras,” Azzopardi said.

Azzopardi last Sunday admitted having requested the hotel stay by asking Ray Fenech to help him find a hotel in Tel Aviv.

Fenech’s family owns the Hilton at the Portomaso, but does not own any hotel in Israel. It appears Fenech used his influence with the Hilton chain to secure Azzopardi a room when the MP called him.

“I should have acted differently back then, and I apologise for not doing so but even my strongest critics have to concede that the Tel Aviv incident did not influence one iota the fulfilment of my duty as an MP,” the MP said of his long-standing criticism on the Electrogas deal, of which the Tumas Group are major shareholders.

The MP requested the favour from the Tumas Group director despite years of criticism of the Electrogas deal.

“At that particularly difficult moment in my private life I felt that I would have been churlish to refuse the offer made by Mr Ray Fenech and that the buying of a silver gift for Mr Ray Fenech would have been a clear enough sign on my part that no obligation existed. Surely he did not need any modest silverware from me, but it was my way of coming ‘even’,” Azzopardi said.

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life said that MPs who reciprocate a gift by another gift, are still bound to follow the Code of Ethics of the Members of the House of Representatives and report the gift.

“I thank the Commissioner for his speedy decision and clarification and I apologize. Besides my impression that Fenech’s gift was ‘balanced’ by my gift, I note that in March 2017 the Tumas Group did not have any direct interest in any legislation before the House. The Electrogas deal had been sealed a long time before and there were no plans for legislations that could have impacted directly the Tumas Group or its subsidiaries.”

Azzopardi’s party was however a major critic of the Electrogas deal from 2013 onwards, famously labelling an LNG tanker supplying gas to the power plant as “a monument to corruption.”

Azzopardi said he was “one of the greatest opponents” of the Electrogas deal, in which Tumas Group are shareholders. “It is very clear that the gift did not in anyway colour or influence my position,” the MP said.

Azzopardi has claimed he risks his life by acting as the lawyer of the Caruana Galizia family against the cabal that killed her, “the same cabal which assassinated her is the same one trying to kill me politically. They will fail.”