The Nationalist Party said on Tuesday that it would move amendments in parliament to ensure that a bill which will limit freezing orders in financial crime will not apply to those accused of corruption.

At present, those accused of a financial crime can have most of their assets frozen by the court. But in terms of the bill, announced in November, the assets frozen would be limited to the amount suspected to have been defrauded.  The Opposition had immediately claimed that the purpose of the bill was to protect those accused of corruption, something which the government denied. 

In a statement on Tuesday, the shadow minister for justice, Karol Aquilina, said that the new law should not apply to those accused of corruption, in the same way as it would not apply for those accused of drug trafficking. 

The Opposition, he said, would also propose in its second amendment that the accused would have to prove that funds released to him by the courts would not have been derived from crime.  

Aquilina said that the government's failure to accept the amendments would confirm that (prime minister) Robert Abela was a bad copy of Joseph Muscat, under whom the institutions meant to guard against corruption had been dismantled and had created a climate of impunity.