Stagno Navarra plays dangerous game in hounding Jason Azzopardi over reserved parking space
One-time Labour propaganda anchorman doxes former Nationalist MP whose unproven allegations and calls for investigations on MPs has heated up partisan rivalry

Karl Stagno Navarra is on a mission to hound Jason Azzopardi in what has become a dangerous game that risks jeopardising the former MP's personal safety.
Stagno Navarra’s latest stunt to ambush Azzopardi after he parked outside his Sliema residence was the apex of a campaign that started back in October. We’ll get to Monday’s filmed stunt further down but first we’ll look at how all this started.
Labour Party propagandist Manuel Cuschieri last year raised hell about a reserved parking spot for Azzopardi in a public car park on the Sliema front. Cuschieri’s comments led to a barrage of criticism from Labour diehards towards the authorities for granting Azzopardi the reserved parking spot in Malta’s prime shopping district.
Prime Minister Robert Abela had also weighed in on the controversy, expressing doubts as to whether a police order to give Azzopardi a reserved parking spot in Sliema, was the result of Azzopardi’s “wailing on social media”.
Sources close to the case had confirmed with MaltaToday that a risk assessment carried out by the police found that Azzopardi was subject to a high threat level. The reserved parking spot in a public car park outside his Sliema residence was one of several security measures taken.
The Stagno Navarra stunt
Roll forward to the start of the year and in what appears to be retribution for Azzopardi’s decision to seek five magisterial inquiries into different ministers and public officials over the Christmas period, the pressure to have the reserved parking space removed was rekindled.
On Monday, Karl Stagno Navarra, whose political propaganda show on One TV was axed last summer, turned up at the Sliema car park to film his stunt.
In a video posted to Facebook, he is seen walking towards the reserved parking space and showing his followers how it was painted over in black because the authorities had finally removed it. A few minutes later, Azzopardi arrives, parks his car and is confronted by Stagno Navarra, who asks him cordially how does it feel to have the parking space removed. He asks Azzopardi: “Do you still feel arrogant?”
Azzopardi calmy responds with a plain “yes” and crosses the road with the camera following his actions. Several public officials employed in the secretariats of ministers ‘liked’ the video with some even asking for the head of the person who initially granted the reserved parking space.
Police: Azzopardi put in ‘greater risk’

What is disturbing about Stagno Navarra’s stunt is that it came just two days after Azzopardi had received an email from the police telling him that the reserved parking space will be withdrawn.
In the email, seen by MaltaToday, the police told Azzopardi that the reserved parking space allocated by Transport Malta in front of his residence posed “a greater risk” to his personal safety because of the exposure of his personal vehicle details in “the media”. The police offered to “discuss private security measures in more detail to help mitigate any risk”.
Ironically, ‘the media’ referred to in the police email was purportedly Stagno Navarra’s own Facebook wall, where the former One TV presenter had previously uploaded videos of Azzopardi’s car with the number plate in full view. Photos of the reserved parking space with the number plate emblazoned on the ground were also shared on social media.
Azzopardi: 'He needs psychiatric help'

When contacted for this story, Jason Azzopardi said that last summer he had insisted with the police that the reserved parking should be “only after 7pm”, after shops close. “I did not want to take up any space during the day but it was Transport Malta that told the police to reserve the space 24/7,” Azzopardi said.
He believes this was done purposely to “elicit the reaction instigated by Labour” and which ultimately resulted in the parking space being removed.
Asked about Stagno Navarra’s stunt, Azzopardi was brash: “He needs psychiatric help.”
Stagno Navarra: ‘Era of arrogance is over’

MaltaToday also contacted Stagno Navarra and asked him whether he realised that his campaign against a parking spot given as a security measure was dangerous and risked fomenting irresponsible actions.
“Absolutely not,” he replied. “The only danger to Jason Azzopardi is coming from Jason Azzopardi himself.”
Stagno Navarra insisted that he is “always against any form of physical and psychological violence”, of which he had been a victim. “I suffered such instances at the hands of those who have an agenda of intolerance such as Jason Azzopardi that included actions and words against me and all my friends in the Labour Party,” Stagno Navarra said.
On Monday’s stunt, he insisted that a “totally unplanned encounter” next to the former reserved parking space was “a message” that Azzopardi’s “era of arrogance is over”.
But Stagno Navarra’s ‘message’ comes at a time when the government is rushing through changes to make it harder for ordinary citizens to request magisterial inquiries.
Rising political temperature

The proposed amendments will force ordinary citizens to first file a police report. Only after a lapse of six months can the individual ask a judge to probe where the police investigation has arrived and if need be, order a magisterial inquiry. But the changes also propose that any proof presented by the individual must be admissible in a court of law and any decision as to whether an inquiry can take place has to be based on the balance of probability.
The government’s decision to tighten the screws on magisterial inquiries is a knee-jerk reaction to Azzopardi’s decision over Christmas to seek five inquiries, which targeted ministers Clint Camilleri and Silvio Schembri among other public officials. The lawyer had last summer asked for two more inquiries involving Identita and the local enforcement agency over claims of wrongdoing at the two agencies.
The situation has led to the political temperature rising with Robert Abela singling out Jason Azzopardi and accusing him of abusing the system to carry out political persecution.
The Nationalist Party has said it will vote against the inquiry amendments and will reverse them when in government.
Azzopardi has not helped his case when last year he admitted that allegations of wrongdoing, he had made against Cabinet Secretary Ryan Spagnol were untrue. Azzopardi was also found guilty of defaming former minister Carmelo Abela when he had implicated him in the 2010 HSBC holdup on the basis of unverified comments.
But Stagno Navarra’s stunt this week has taken the issue to another level, raising concerns over the personal safety of Azzopardi in light of the police’s own assessment that he is at risk. The Labour Party diehards and ministry officials baying for Azzopardi’s blood just add to the climate of insecurity.
The Daphne parallels
Meanwhile, the several attacks directed at Azzopardi were lambasted by PN MEP David Casa. “The fascist and coordinated attack on Jason Azzopardi and all those working to stop the theft from public coffers is unacceptable and condemnable,” Casa wrote in a Facebook post. “We should not allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated,” he reiterated, insisting Azzopardi should not be left alone.
Robert Aquilina, who runs the Malta office of Fondazione Falcone, said the campaign against Azzopardi was “cruel, inhumane and hateful”.
“The forces of law and order are not being serious about the obvious danger this is causing. We learnt absolutely nothing from Daphne’s murder. Now when ugly things happen, those who are staying silent and those who are fomenting all this will attend a demonstration of national unity,” Aquilina wrote.
As for Azzopardi, the former MP has no intention to back down. “Obviously I will keep going on,” he insisted with MaltaToday.
READ ALSO: PN condemns harassment of Jason Azzopardi by Labour activists