[WATCH] What happened yesterday crossed the line, Justice Minister says

Owen Bonnici on angry protesters surrounding his car outside parliament

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici has said that while everyone has the right to protest, yesterday’s incident "crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed".

On Wednesday, a protest by civil society groups calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, turned sour when protestors surrounded Bonnici’s ministerial car following his exit from parliament.

Protestors proceeded to bang and hit his car, while shouting “corrupt, corrupt”, “mafia”, “out”, and called for justice to be served.

Bonnici was fielding questions from journalists after a national conference on cleaning, where he gave his reaction to yesterday’s events.

“I have no problem with protesting, I am one of those who protects the right to protest, but what happened yesterday crossed the line,” Bonnici said.

“To have people banging on the car doors and banging on windows with the hope of breaking them, that shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

The justice minister took to Facebook to condone the mob of protestors in a post on Thursday morning.

The justice minister also agreed with Joseph Muscat’s comments, in which he stated that the actions carried out yesterday, were not representative of all those who may be critical of the government.

Muscat said that the focus should be on delivering justice by finding those who ordered Caruana Galizia’s murder.

“There have been other high-profile murders in the past for which prime ministers said they knew who carried out the killings but nobody was ever brought to justice. In contrast, this case [Caruana Galizia murder] is close to be solved under my watch,” Muscat said.

Bonnici was also using his second ministerial car for today’s events, after his ministerial car sustained extensive damage following yesterday's incidents.

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