Prime Minister Robert Abela on Thursday morning declined to answer questions about the future of minister Carmelo Abela, who has been linked to a failed HSBC bank heist in 2010. 

Times of Malta approached the prime minister, who has just finished a precautionary two-week coronavirus quarantine period, outside Castille as he arrived for work. 

He said he was late for a meeting with the president of the EU council and promised he would field questions about the matter in a later news conference. 

The prime minister has yet to comment on the matter, since Times of Malta first revealed the police have opened an investigation into allegations linking his minister to the failed HSBC heist in 2010.

The minister was questioned by police on Wednesday after Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Alfred Degiorgio named him as the inside man involved in the heist. 

Minister Abela denies the allegations. 

The heist ended in a violent shootout with police outside HSBC’s Qormi headquarters. 

The minister had been called to testify about the case during the compilation of evidence against suspects Vince Muscat and Darren Debono (it-Topo). 

Carmelo Abela, speaking at a news conference earlier this month. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Abela had initially claimed he could not remember testifying, but later backtracked. He told MaltaToday this week that he was called to testify as a “bank representative”, and was only asked “technical questions”. 

The “technical details” revolved around whether he had access to the security equipment suspected to have been used to facilitate the heist. 

Vince Muscat told investigators last year that the robbers had been given three key cards allowing them access to sensitive areas within HSBC’s cash centre.

Carmelo Abela, who is a minister in the Office of The Prime Minister, has faced calls for his resignation from the opposition, who said his position is no longer tenable.

On Thursday, PN leader Bernard Grech called on the prime minister to take "immediate action".

"In a normal country, when you have a Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister who is being interrogated by the police about allegations on a very serious case, this leads to him being at least suspended by the Cabinet until the investigations are completed," he said.

"Under the leadership of Robert Abela not only does this not happen but we have silence from the Prime Minister. Then we are amazed at how the reputation of our country has earned the blow it has earned."