Jason Azzopardi: Muscat used Times interview to give Yorgen Fenech legal advice

The Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi has claimed former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat used his interview with The Times to give legal advice to Yorgen Fenech.

“The more I think about what Muscat said, and why, in his interview with Herman Grech, which had nothing new from a journalistic point of view, the more convinced I am that he’s part of a diabolical, orchestrated and masonic plot,” Azzopardi said in a Facebook post.

In his interview, Muscat said he will not severe his historic alliance with former chief of staff, who is facing charges of money laundering, insisting he was not aware Schmebri was relaying information on the Caruana Galizia murder investigation to the alleged mastermind Yorgen Fenech, or other associates.

Muscat also questioned the public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s credibility. He asked why the State Attorney was kept out of the public inquiry, while the family’s journalists were allowed to participate.

Jason Azzopardi compared Muscat’s interview with one carried out by former Labour leader Alfred Sant, who he said had led a campaign to discredit Joseph Fenech (Żeppi l-Ħafi).

“Just like Alfred Sant had led a campaign to discredit Żeppi l-Ħafi after he was given a presidential pardon to testify about the [stabbing] of Richard Cachia Caruana, Joseph Muscat has now publicly attacked the credibility of Melvin Theuma,” Azzopardi said.

The Nationalist MP said Muscat went beyond that, assisting Fenech in his preparations to open another constitutional case “with the help of a foreign lawyer who had represented Gaddafi.”

Azzopardi called it a “desperate attempt to try and evade justice.”

In his interview, Muscat also argued that the public inquiry could prejudice the criminal case against Fenech.

“I’m not a lawyer but I hope advice was sought. But if we go through the entire process and the case is taken to a court of human rights which concludes that the case was prejudged, we’d have done all this for nothing,” Muscat said.