Impunity afforded to Keith Schembri is the last straw, Casa warns

More botched corruption prosecutions will invite unprecedented scrutiny

In an interview with Andrew Azzopardi on RTK 103, MEP David Casa raised the looming prescription period concerning Keith Schembri’s leaks from secret police briefings to Yorgen Fenech when already under investigation for murder, underlying the blatant police inaction in that regard. 

Casa stated emphatically that his allegiance was not with any corrupt government. Following the interview, Casa declared that “the evidence that has continued to emerge in court on the criminal breaches ostensibly committed by Malta’s most powerful officials should set off alarm bells on the grievous state of the rule of law in Malta.” 

He warned Prime Minister Robert Abela that another botched prosecution against the architects of the rule of law crisis will spark serious consequences on Malta’s standing in the European Union, having direct consequences on Maltese citizens.

“We will not sleepwalk into another meltdown of the rule of law,” Casa declared, holding Robert Abela responsible for the continued deficiencies in the justice system and the implications on EU funding that is intrinsically tied to fundamental democratic values.

“In a European country, nobody is above the law,” Casa asserted.

“The political pressure we have mounted in the past years against arrant corruption has borne results. Joseph Muscat’s only contributions to the political fore now are his pathetic threats against his successor to keep justice at bay while his accomplices are forever labelled as accessories to a state-sanctioned demonization campaign that culminated in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.”

Rather than prosecute Keith Schembri, this government has continued to award him vast sums of money in direct orders. This is a damning indictment on the Labour Government’s attitude toward justice. And it is still intent on covering up the serious crimes that subverted public office to attempt to exculpate those behind the heinous assassination of a journalist.

“I will not allow the European Union to remain complacent in the face of such a dire threat to the rule of law as the Maltese government continues to allow the prospects of justice to slowly seep away,” Casa charged.