Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri dodged questions on whether he would shoulder political responsibility over the stabbing of state witness Melvin Theuma on Tuesday.

The self-confessed Daphne Caruana Galizia murder middleman who was found with multiple injuries below the kidneys, neck and a wrist, was under police protection.

The matter was raised by Camilleri himself in parliament in a brief statement in which he gave a brief recollection of what happened on Tuesday night.

While insisting he had no further developments to report, following a crime conference on Wednesday, he called on the Opposition to refrain from trying to score political points from this incident.

The police are saying that there were no signs of struggle at Theuma’s Swieqi apartment and that he indicated to the officer who found him in a pool of blood that the injuries were self inflicted. 

Although the Minister did not want to take questions over the matter, he was overruled by Speaker Anglu Farrugia. 

Opposition leader Adrian Delia asked if there had been any developments since the morning amid speculation that this could have been an attempt on Theuma’s life.

He also asked if a separate investigation had been launched into the kind of protection that the police was offering.

In a highly-charged tone, PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami accused the Camilleri of “incompetence”. 

“The witness in the most important case in the last 30 years is dying as the police were not capable to offer proper security,” he remarked.

“In view of what happened, are you going to shoulder political responsibility for this failure?” he asked. 

In his reply the Minister said he was only interested in the truth, and denounced what he described as attempts to score political points by Opposition members.

Replying to a question from Opposition MP Beppe Fenech Adami, Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne said that according to the latest medical bulletin he had received around noon Theuma was in “critical but stable condition”.

However, he declined to disclose further details on his condition citing privacy reasons. Fearne conveyed his wish for Theuma to recover not only for his own state of health but also to fulfil his role as State witness.