An aide to Chris Cardona had dropped libel cases he had filed against Daphne Caruana Galizia after she had claimed that he visited a brothel in Germany with the minister.  

Dr Cardona and Joe Gerada had denied the claims and sued the blogger after she reported in January 2017 that the minister was seen at the FKK Acapulco brothel in Velbert, while in Germany to take part in a forum on the digitisation of European industry. 

Ms Caruana Galizia claimed that the minister had been spotted at the club in the company of an unidentified "short and bald" man, subsequently identified as Mr Gerada. The two had vehemently denied the claim. 

The FKK Acapulco advertised itself as a "sauna club", with services including stripteases, gogo girls and "30 fully air-conditioned top suites".

Dr Cardona's libel cases were cancelled in May.  He also dropped a case against former Net journalist Mario Frendo who had further investigated the allegations. 

The Caruana Galizia family had insisted as far back as October, days after the journalist's car bomb murder, that they wanted the case to proceed.

In April, the victim's son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, had said that Dr Cardona and his legal advisors had an interest to stop the case from moving forward.

"I want to make it clear that we want the case to continue," he said. “Chris Cardona has an interest in stopping the case.”

Dropping the case, he explained, would mean that officials from Vodafone and Go would be unable to give evidence about mobile telephony data which would show the minister's whereabouts on the day.

In a tweet, former Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil challenged Dr Cardona to publish his mobile phone location on the day.