Robert and Lydia Abela apply to demolish and rebuild their ODZ Żejtun villa

Prime Minister Robert Abela has filed a planning application seeking to demolish their controversy-dogged ODZ villa in Żejtun. 

Times of Malta reported in March that the property owned by Robert and Lydia Abela had been rented out to Russian passport applicants without verification that they had ever lived there. 

Abela’s law firm Abela Advocates functioned as agents for the golden passport scheme at the time. 

Earlier this year, MaltaToday also reported how Abela had acquired the Żejtun property in 2017 just three months after it was regularised by the Planning Authority.

Abela was the PA's chief legal counsel at the time. 

The villa's previous owners had faced obstacles in selling off the property due to a number of works carried out without a permit.

Those works included extending the villa's footprint by some 352 square metres outside the development zone, when policy only permitted a maximum floor area of 200 square metres. 

The unauthorised works were carried out before 1994 and sanctioned by the planning commission some weeks before it was sold to Abela for a bargain €600,000.

Times of Malta has also reported on how the retainer Abela’s law firm was paid by the PA for...