Update 2 | Jason Azzopardi alleges that a police sergeant tipped off criminals before Marsa raid

Updated at 1am on Tuesday with Malta police reaction

Nationalist Party MP Jason Azzopardi has accused a police sergeant of allegedly giving the men accused of murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia a tip-off before the December raid on their hideout.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday evening, Azzopardi said the police officer, Aldo Cassar, worked in the police’s criminal intelligence unit, where he was privy to very sensitive information. He was quoting from an article in Italian newspaper La Repubblica that made the tip-off claim.

Police sergeant Aldo Cassar

However, the police denied all the allegations, insisting that Cassar was not privy to any information linked to the murder investigation and this had been clarified to Azzopardi when he raised the matter as a lawyer representing the Caruana Galizia family.

Azzopardi alleged that Cassar placed a phone call to one of the three men accused with Caruana Galizia’s murder just before the massive police and army raid on the potato shed in Marsa last December. "It was all a mock-up," he retorted, with reference to the security operation.

Read more: Malta Security Service denies prior knowledge of Caruana Galizia assasination plot

At the time of their arrest, the men offered no resistance and it is suspected that they disposed of several mobile phones in the sea shortly before the operation.

Azzopardi said Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar was informed of the incriminating phone call Cassar is alleged to have made but all he did was transfer the police officer to the Rapid Intervention Unit.

“You would have thought the Police Commissioner would have started criminal action for the serious crimes committed by this sergeant but no… all he did was offer him a choice to which section within the force he wanted to be transferred,” Azzopardi charged, accusing the Police Commissioner of colluding with criminals.

In Parliament, Azzopardi referred to a report that had been published in the PN organ Il-Mument last June on the same police officer, which claimed that when working in the immigration section he had personally escorted a Libyan national onto a private jet that was carrying the Prime Minister for a trip to Tripoli.

Azzopardi said the same officer had also been implicated in a visas scandal when he acted as guarantor for Libyans obtaining a visa in Malta’s consulate in Tripoli.

However, each time, the officer was simply transferred to some other police section until his eventual transfer to the intelligence unit in 2016.

Azzopardi accused Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of reneging on his promise not to leave any stone unturned in the attempt to find who ordered Caruana Galizia’s murder.

He said Muscat had no interest in doing so, laying the blame for the journalist’s murder at the government’s feet.

Kurt Farrugia on Twitter

It's a lie - head of government communication

Meanwhile, in a tweet on Monday night, Kurt Farrugia, the head of government communication, said the allegations made by Azzopardi are "a lie".

Farrugia also questioned why Azzopardi, who is one of the legal representatives of the Caruana Galizia family in the criminal case against the three men accused of her murder, chose the cover of parliamentary immunity to reveal something like this rather than the law courts.

Police deny allegations

In a statement the Malta police  denied that it had received any allegation on a possible leak into the murder investigation as alleged by Azzopardi.

The police said that this had already been explained to Azzopardi when in his role as lawyer to the Caruana Galizia family he had already made such claims.

Azzopardi had also been told that the steps taken in regard to the police sergeant "had nothing to do" with any suggested tip off on the operation that led the arrest of the three accused, the police said.

"Furthermore, the said sergeant was in no way privy to any information related to the said operation," the police insisted.

The police refuted the claim that there were intercepts on the suspects that gave indications of a tip off and that the police may have known about the murder before it happened.

"Such allegations do not help the ongoing investigations of the Malta Police into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Such allegations can also hinder the case which the police are building against the three suspects in the murder, and possible further developments," the police said.