The Nationalist Party on Wednesday slammed the police commissioner for police omissions which led to entrepreneur Christian Borg being acquitted of perjury charges, saying it only took its MP Karol Aquilina 12 minutes to get an official copy of testimony by Borg which the police had failed to produce.

Borg was accused of having perjured himself when giving testimony in a civil case in January. A magistrate had ordered his arraignment, but when the case was heard on Tuesday, the prosecuting inspector failed to produce a transcript of the testimony and Borg was acquitted,

The PN said shadow justice minister Karol Aquilina, conducted an experiment by going to the court registry to see how long it took to get an authentic copy of Borg's testimony.   

"At 11:30 this morning, Dr Aquilina went to the Court Registry and requested to see the file of the civil case in question. He was given the file without any issues. Copies of the seven pages relevant to the criminal case were then made. Those copies were authenticated as "true copies of the original" and were stamped. This entire process took only 12 minutes!" the PN said. 

"This was all Commissioner Gafà needed to do to prove the case against the business partner of Prime Minister Robert Abela: just 12 minutes of work!"

The PN said this was not the first case to fall apart due to an omission by the Police Commissioner. "No one in the country believes these are merely 'mistakes'. Today, it is clear to everyone that Commissioner Angelo Gafà is in his position to serve the interests of criminals who are friends of the government, in this case, the business partner of Prime Minister Robert Abela himself," the PN said. 

The statement was signed by Karol Aquilina and by Darren Carabott, shadow minister for home affairs.