Nationalist MEP David Casa said on Wednesday that attempts to silence him had clearly failed, and he vowed to continue working for truth to emerge. 

Casa was reacting to allegations made in court by Daphne Caruana Galizia murder plot middleman Melvin Theuma who said that suspected mastermind Yorgen Fenech wanted to prevent his re-election as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019 and had paid a substantial amount of money for this purpose.

The PN also denied the claims.

While noting that the allegations were not new, Casa said: “If there have been any attempts by Yorgen Fenech to silence me, these attempts have clearly failed. For the past 4 years, I have been working tirelessly to ensure that the corruption and money laundering cases revealed by the Panama Papers and Daphne Caruana Galizia are investigated and those involved are prosecuted. Since Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered, I never wavered in working to ensure that justice is served.”

Casa noted that it was through his intervention that accounts held by Fenech in a Dubai bank were frozen.

Casa said he was grateful to the electorate who chose him to be their voice in the European Parliament “to continue to fight for justice and to have strong, independent and credible institutions which truly defend the Maltese people.” 

PN DENIAL

The Nationalist Party also denied Theuma's claims.

The party said it never received any offer, let alone any payment, to undermine the campaign of any of its candidates.

The party recalled that it had already denied the claims, and would continue to do so. 

PN leader Adrian Delia had also, in June last year, denied the claim during an interview on Xarabank with former Nationalist Party radio host David Thake, who is now an MP on the PN benches. 

Thake had suggested that businessman Yorgen Fenech offered the Nationalist Party €50,000 to ensure David Casa was not re-elected to the European Parliament.

Delia had urged Thake to take any evidence he had to substantiate his claims to the police and assured him the PN would back him “with all my might” if there was truth to them.

"Zero tolerance to corruption," Delia said. "There is absolutely no link to Fenech".