Jason Azzopardi has decided to renounce his brief as a lawyer for NGO Repubblika in its case concerning allegations of wrongdoing by army officials at sea.
“I, in no way want my professional role as a lawyer to be used by the prime minister as a weapon to distract the public from the substance of the matter,” Azzopardi, who also serves as a Nationalist Party MP, said.
Azzopardi said he would also be consulting the PN leadership before taking on any similarly politically sensitive cases in future.
Prime Minister Robert Abela singled Azzopardi out for criticism during a Friday evening address to the nation in which he said that he was being accused of homicide, after Repubblika filed two police reports concerning the death of migrants at sea.
Abela said that the reports had been filed by Repubblika and Azzopardi. In reality, Azzopardi was one of four lawyers who filed the reports on the NGO’s behalf.
Repubblika on Tuesday handed evidence to the courts which Times of Malta understands would call into question the allegation that an AFM crew sabotaged a migrant boat at sea. The allegation, first made by sea rescue hotline Alarm Phone, had drawn no comment from the government until Repubblika filed its complaint.
In his statement announcing his decision to resign from the case, Azzopardi said that the prime minister was trying to use the case and his involvement in it to score political points by attacking the Opposition and PN leader Adrian Delia.
Abela is himself a lawyer by profession, and in his statement Azzopardi said that the prime minister “should know much better”.
In a brief statement, the PN said it took note of Azzopardi’s decision and backed the MP, saying his professional job was being used deceptively by the prime minister to try and attack the Opposition.
"We will not sit back and allow the government to divide rather than unite the Maltese people," the PN said.
In another statement, the Labour Party said nothing Azzopardi said could extricate him from his shameful act of trying to pin murder on AFM soldiers, the Prime Minister and the army chief.