Jason Azzopardi asks if people in power knew of Caruana Galizia murder plan, as Parliament discusses ‘Daphne Project’ revelations
Parliament discussing 'Daphne Project' Chris Cardona allegations, after Opposition leader invoked standing order used to request a parliamentary discussion on issues which are of public interest, defined and urgent
Deputy speaker Claudette Buttigieg today upheld Opposition leader Adrian Delia's motion for an urgent discussion on yesterday's 'Daphne Project' allegations on Economy Minister's Chris Cardona's meetings, at a Siggiewi bar, with one of the persons accused of killing journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Buttigieg decided that what was revealed constituted a matter of public urgency, resulting in a heated exchange of arguments between the two sides of the House, which saw Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi question whether someone in power had foreknowledge of the Caruana Galizia murder plan, but did nothing.
“It has just been revealed that Mizzi and Schembri receives more than a million euros in the 17 Black company. Schembri admitted this, and this amounts to an attempt at money laundering,” Azzopardi said.
Regarding Cardona’s alleged meeting, he questioned why the minister would have to meet one of the accused outside, before and after the murder.
Could it be that someone in power knew the plans being hatched to kill Caruana Galizia, but closed an eye, he asked.
“The accused had been informed that the raid [on their premises] would be taking place. Explain this to me,” Azzopardi said.
“Is there some rogue element in the secret services in our country that notified them? Is it a coincidence that all the mobile phones were thrown in the sea before they were arrested?”, he said, “An operation which was supposedly secret had a mole [within it].”
Posing a question to the Prime Minister, he asked when Muscat got to know that Cardona had met with one of the persons accused of a very serious crime, and whether he had sent for Cardona or if the minister had approached him.
"What measures did you take then?," Azzopardi asked, as he maintained that the Prime Minister was "actively complicit".
Earlier: Delia and Fearne cross swords
"As I speak new information is being published - information regarding high ranking member of government," Delia said, in reference to new revelations published this evening regarding 17 Black, tourism minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.
"From what I am seeing right now, this matter is not going to stop here. Revelation after revelation are going to be published," he highlighted, "The government can start making decisions today."
"I am happy when I see government success stories and when investment comes to Malta. But this is not a matter of money. It is a question of whether our country will remain being considered as a Western democratic country, or instead a totalitarian country with no law and no justice, where the democracy we worked for so hard disappeared in a few years, for money."
Stressing that the public had to right to know the truth about who was the mandator behind Caruana Galizia’s murder, Delia said that it has been documented for thousands of years in Malta that justice was upheld, and the Maltese people always had a sense of what was just.
“The Prime Minister said that whatever had to be spent, would be spent to catch [who killed Caruana Galizia],” he said, “And it caught who placed the bomb. But it didn’t catch who ordered the killing.”
“Did the Police Commissioner know that Chris Cardona met with one of the persons accused of the murder, both before and after [the crime] happened,” he stressed, insisting that the people had the right to know the truth, and the government was obliged to give answers.
Replying to Delia, Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne, speaking instead of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who is abroad on government business, said that the compilation of evidence against the persons accused of Caruana Galizia's murder was ongoing, as per procedure and in accordance with the rule of law.
"If like the government, the Opposition believes in the rule of law, it should let the judicial process take its course," Fearne said.
"I am told the [Siggiewi] bar is close to where Delia lives," Fearne said, challenging the Opposition leader to tell the House whether he had ever been to the establishment, and whether anyone in the Opposition had ever had any connection with the accused - and causing Delia to interject that the motion being discussed was on Cardona.
Labour MP Byron Camilleri turned to Caruana Galizia's allegations in Delia's regard, calling them "very serious" and saying that we would never know if what she wrote was true, since the libel suits in this regard had been withdrawn following the journalist's death.
Addressing the House, Democratic Party MP Godfrey Farrugia said that "in a normal country, a responsible government takes political responsibility and safeguards public interest. I ask the government to do what it right."
Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield, considerably agitated, later challenged Nationalist Party MP Mario DeMarco to disclose his connections with the accused, to which DeMarco replied that he had represented one of the DeGiorgio brothers in a civil case.
"Today we got to know that there are relationships between the accused and member of the Nationalist Party," Bedingfield said animatedly, with DeMarco retorting that this had been public knowledge for months.
Delia subsequently said that although he had visited the Siggiewi bar, he had "never had any meetings with criminals there."
Opposition's second request for urgent discussion on 'Daphne Project'
Delia earlier this afternoon reiterated the request he made yesterday, which had not been accepted, for the government to issue a ministerial statement regarding the information revealed Tuesday by local and international news organisations that Cardona had met with one of the persons accused of Caruana Galizia’s murder, before and after she was killed.
He today invoked a parliamentary standing order used to request a discussion in Parliament on an issue which is of public interest, defined, and urgent. This was upheld by the deputy speaker following a considerable amount of time of deliberation.
"We are here talking about a life which was taken away brutally," Delia highlighted as he made his request.
Fearne, however said that the request for a ministerial statement could again not be upheld, contending that since the news organisations had released their information yesterday, the matter was no longer ‘urgent’, and the criteria for invoking the standing order were therefore not met.
“Delia himself said the news was issued yesterday. Yesterday we asked him if there was a standing order he wanted to quote, and he could have quoted the one he mentioned today, but he didn’t. So the urgency has today passed, and he cannot invoke [the standing order],” Fearne said.
This led to Delia insisting that all the standing order's requirements where being met, since the matter of Cardona murder suspects connections as reported by news outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times, Reuters and La Repubblica was of interest to the public, was a defined issue, and was still urgent.
“Fearne is mixing the ‘immediate’ with what is ‘urgent’. That which is ‘immediate’ is defined at law in terms of an amount of time. 'Urgency' denotes the importance of what we are discussing and on how essential having answers on the matter is,” Delia emphasised.
"Every day, every minute we go without answers, our country is being damaged - is this not urgent?" he asked.