Chris Cardona requests Speaker’s protection over Opposition MP’s tweet

Economy minister Chris Cardona has requested the protection of the Speaker of the House over a tweet by Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi in which he said Cardona had close ties to criminals.

“This evening you could see how the corrupt and those who are familiar with criminals behave: they don’t allow those who expose their lies and evil speak,” tweeted Azzopardi.

In parliament, Cardona said that Azzopardi’s tweet constituted a clear breach of parliamentary privilege and that it went against a number of the House’s standing orders, including that stating that no member of parliament shall use offensive language in relation to, or attribute “bad motive”, to any other member.

He said Azzopardi’s tweet constituted a “clear prima face breach of parliamentary privilege”.

Replying to the minister, Azzopardi said that the comments reminded him of the saying that “an unsolicited excuse is proof of guilt”, adding that he had not mentioned Cardona by name. “How does he know I was referring to him?"

Azzopardi’s tweet followed a report by the Daphne Project, which claimed that the minister had attended a bachelor party at which Alfred Degiorgio - one of the the men charged with Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder – was present.

Back in April, the Daphne Project, citing two witnesses, claimed that Cardona had been seen with the same man at a bar in Siggiewi.