Ex-minister Carmelo Abela ‘did not know’ about Degiorgios’ claim on past crimes

Former Labour minister Carmelo Abela told a court he “did not know” that the Degiorgio brothers had named him in a letter they wrote to the European Commissioner for Justice claiming they had information implicating him and a previous minister in past crimes. 

“I don’t know that they mentioned me, but I know that there was a letter to [Justice Commissioner] Reynders,” said Abela when cross-examined. 

Abela was testifying in libel proceedings instituted against Jason Azzopardi over a Facebook post in April last year, in which the former PN MP claimed that Abela had aided the mastermind behind a botched armed robbery at the HSBC headquarters in 2010. 

Azzopardi further claimed that Abela had received a €300,000 payment for his role in the planned heist. 

Abela categorically denied those allegations as “lies” and promptly sued Azzopardi for libel. 

The Degiorgio brothers, Alfred and George, were last month handed a 40-year jail term after admitting to their role as hitmen in the 2017 car bomb murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

“It was in the newspapers,” Azzopardi’s lawyer, Joseph Zammit Maempel, pointed out in reference to the brothers’ letter to the commissioner. 

“The newspapers...