Updated | Azzopardi on Facebook: Carmelo Abela promised €300,000 for his role in HSBC heist

Update at 8:15 pm with Carmelo Abela statement  

Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi has accused Labour minister Carmelo Abela of being the government minister who allegedly aided the suspects in the 2010 HSBC heist.

Azzopardi made the allegation in a Facebook status he posted, in a reaction to disparaging comments made by Abela on Azzopardi over an ethics investigation concerning the minister.

In no uncertain terms, Azzopardi made the most blatant of accusations after having already mooted that HSBC heist suspect Vincent Muscat il-Koħħu had information on a Labour minister being involved in the major crime.

“I am no saint... but better not to have been an accomplice in the HSBC hold-up,” Azzopardi said.

He accused Abela of having been an accomplice of the HSBC heist’s mastermind by passing on internal footage of the HSBC headquarters and false keys.

Minister Carmelo Abela has denied the claims, saying that he will be pursuing the appropriate legal avenues to defend his integrity.  

In a Facebook post on Friday evening, the minister said the Nationalist Party is in cahoots with criminals, insisting Jason Azzopardi has to pay for actions.  

“Bernard Grech has a lot to answer for,” he said.  

Azzopardi also claimed Abela was promised a €300,000 payment from the loot. Azzopardi also claimed that Abela was an accomplice with the mastermind of the heist in threatening witnesses via Signal.

Abela has already denied the allegations. He 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.

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.

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