The Nationalist Party has appealed to government MPs to support its motion calling for a public inquiry into the death in a construction collapse of Jean Paul Sofia ahead of a debate in parliament on Thursday.

Sofia, 20, was killed when a factory under construction on government land collapsed at the Corradino industrial estate in December. His mother, Isabelle Bonnici, has led calls for a public inquiry into the incident. 

She is being supported in her calls by the Nationalist Party, which insists that the prime minister’s actions and his refusal to order an independent public inquiry into the incident showed he was not interested in learning the whole truth about the tragic death.

Addressing a news conference on Tuesday, PN MPs Jerome Caruana Cilia and Stanley Zammit said seven months had now passed since the collapse and yet the Prime Minister persists in rejecting a public inquiry.

They questioned whether there were people close to the Labour Party who were being protected.

Times of Malta revealed in December how the government land on which the private factory was being built is leased to an alleged human trafficker, Kurt Buhagiar.

His business partner, Matthew Schembri, has faced his own accusations of criminal wrongdoing in connection with two “hitmen” allegedly hired to assault his ex-wife’s father-in-law.

Bonnici suspects unethical political decisions could have led the land to be given to irresponsible developers, which is one of the reasons why she wants politicians to be investigated as well.

The PN insisted that the state had the duty to take all necessary measures to safeguard lives and said a serious analytical exercise should be carried out for such incidents to be avoided in future.

A public inquiry goes further than a magisterial one as it could examine issues beyond criminal responsibility, the PN insisted, as it reiterated its proposal to set up of an office of inquiring judges specialising in inquiries.