Updated 6.15pm
The Speaker turned down the Nationalist Party's demand for an urgent parliamentary debate on Monday on the theft of 200kg of drugs from a supposedly secure area managed by the Armed Forces of Malta.
The drugs were stolen from a container at an army base in Safi on Saturday night. The drugs, seized last year, were being held there following a request by the courts pending destruction. Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri offered his resignation, but Prime Minister Robert Abela promptly refused it.
Presenting the party’s request in parliament, opposition leader Bernard Grech said that on Sunday Malta “woke up in shock to find that 200kg of drugs are now in Malta’s streets, stolen from under the noses of our armed forces”.
“This was the responsibility of Byron Camilleri, who isn’t even here in parliament to answer for his actions,” Grech said.
As he spoke, PN MPs held up aloft posters with a series of slogans – “Pretend resignation”, “Condemned by the Ombudsman”, “Torture in prison” – emblazoned beneath Camilleri’s image, to shouts of “pantomime” from the government benches.
Responding to the opposition’s request, government whip, Naomi Cachia argued that a parliamentary debate in the matter is premature, with investigations into the case still ongoing.
“We appreciate the gravity of the matter, but we have an obligation to respect investigations into the case,” Cachia said, requesting permission for Prime Minister Robert Abela to make a statement to update the house on “the facts at hand, in full respect of the investigation”.
After the speaker ruled against an urgent debate, Abela rose to make a statement. But it failed to get off the ground amidst several interruptions, with government and opposition MPs trading jeers and insults.
With the session descending into chaos, the speaker once again suspended the session in the hope of restoring order. It resumed a short while later.
In a press conference earlier on Monday outside the Home Affairs Ministry in Valletta, shadow minister Darren Carabott said that in a normal country the minister would have gone by now.
"Instead, the prime minister has decided to go against the best interests of the public and refused Byron Camilleri's resignation. For this reason, we will be demanding an urgent debate in parliament," he said.
Carabott went on to list recent scandals involving the home affairs ministry, including the ID cards racket, the situation at the prisons and the escape of two Moroccans from a plane at Malta International Airport. They are still at large.
"Our country deserves a government that is focused on the future, and a home affairs ministry focused on providing peace of mind and security. Instead, the focus is on covering up one scandal after another."
Carabott said that if Camilleri was not allowed to resign, the government as a whole would have to bear collective responsibility.
PN MP Graziella Galea said the theft was alarming.
"What security do we have when such a large amount of drugs is stolen from under the noses of the Armed Forces?" she said, adding that in a normal country, the scandals that happened under Camilleri's watch would each be grounds for resignation.
The prime minister was weak, Galea said, and did not have the guts to take action because he had lost all authority.
The party has called on Abela to provide a detailed explanation in parliament about the theft, its links to criminal cases, and the market value of the stolen drugs.
It expressed solidarity with AFM soldiers who, it said, were being painted in a bad light following this incident.