Jason Azzopardi: Government trying to bury Caruana Galizia inquiry findings

The Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi has accused the government of trying to bury the findings of the public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“Killing Daphne was not enough for them, they wanted to kill the report into her murder,” Azzopardi said speaking in parliament.

Azzopardi insisted the inquiry exposed shortcomings in the country’s institutions, which he claimed government does not want to address.

“Why would this government stop the abuse of power, when it is the personification of that abuse? Why would you address unexplained wealth, when it’s your own ministers who carry out that abuse?” he said in the House.

The MP was speaking during a discussion regarding the act on parliamentary services. He said while the Opposition agreed with the proposed bill, it is a “drop in the ocean compared to the problems faced by the country”.

He said the Labour administration has created a culture of impunity. “And this impunity still reigns.”

After independent MP and former Labour minister Konrad Mizzi refused to testify before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Azzopardi called out the government MPs sitting on the committee for “defending the corrupt”.

“You didn’t have the courage to agree with Karol Aquilina,” he said.

Azzopardi insisted “there is something going on” between them and Mizzi.

“How can we have a change in mentality when you protect the guilty? How can we get off the greylist?” he said.

“He [Mizzi] knows how much money Yorgen Fenech passed on to the Labour Party, how much Joseph Muscat received. What kind of blackmail is going on?”

Jason Azzopardi also spoke about Egrant, demanding an explanation on why the inquiry was not reopened, despite an order by Magistrate Ian Farrugia.

The magistrate had called for the inquiry to establish why financial transfers to Pilatus Bank were made.

He said the AG was legally obliged to obey the magistrate’s order, but nothing had happened.