Jason’s bombshell
He left it rather late, so it did not make it to the main television news.
Predictably, Jason Azzopardi’s claim caused massive reactions not just in Malta, but also elsewhere in Europe such as La Repubblica (which got his name wrong). The only place where his allegation was not reacted to, one must say, was in the speech made by the PN leader yesterday morning.
The allegation that the three persons who were later charged with the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia had been previously informed they were about to be arrested and charged with the murder, and that the police mole, rather than being charged, had been offered an alternative between being sent to a police station or join the Rapid Intervention Unit, has put the whole investigation into the killing on a very different level.
Obviously, Dr Azzopardi’s claim was made in Parliament under the cover of immunity and thus no proof has been forthcoming. So, in the end, it all depends on one’s point of view, political belief and perhaps biases.
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One cannot expect any confirmation from the police, not even if the sergeant in question has been re-deployed, never mind why this re-deployment had to happen or, if the sergeant was so friendly with the three men, he felt he had to warn them they were about to be arrested.
Beyond the claim may be a deeper truth: what is really worrying is not just the collusion that may save a sergeant who is really in with the leadership and offer him a different job for his misdemeanor, but rather what this collusion means in the investigation of who ordered the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Up to quite recently we were still uncertain if the killing had been ordered in Malta for purely Maltese reasons. Other countries and different scenarios were mentioned. But slowly the killing is taking on a more Maltese colour and in the Maltese context that means the involvement of a political centre of power. We are not saying the killing was ordered by the prime minister but maybe someone close to him who could end up holding him to ransom as well.
This, after all, is Malta, where people have been getting killed by car bombs for many years and most of these murders have never been solved. One other killing by a car bomb is just one other person dead. Except that that person was Malta’s best-known (and also most hated or admired) journalist and that the killing made waves around the world. Someone has made a very bad miscalculation and is now trying to figure out why this killing cannot be wiped away and forgotten as all the others have. Maybe we will never find out who ordered Daphne’s killing and for what reason. But we can never stop in our efforts, and the government and the forces of law and order too must never stop. Whether true or not, Jason Azzopardi’s claim is another encouragement to us all never to stop until the murder has been fully explained and the perpetrators punished.