Jason Azzopardi says sergeant Aldo Cassar tipped off Daphne suspects

Nationalist Party MP Jason Azzopardi named PS88 Aldo Cassar as the police sergeant who alerted the three men accused of murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia about their impending arrest.

Speaking during adjournment time on Monday evening. Azzopardi said that according to several sources who spoke to him, Cassar was close to the Labour Party and the Prime Minister.

Azzopardi said the police commissioner was aware that the sergeant had alerted the accused but instead of taking action against him he was transferred to another unit on the orders of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

The sergeant had even been given a choice: whether to transfer to a police station or to the Rapid Intervention Unit (RIU). Cassar chose the RIU.

Azzopardi said the police commissioner must resign, and he accused the Prime Minister of “colluding with criminals”. He also said the intelligence services were helping the government cover up any tracks.

The MP also said the government had called an early election in 2017 because of a leak of tens of thousands of Electrogas files to Caruana Galizia. These files are now being investigated by a team of international journalists working for The Daphne Project.

Azzopardi asked: “Could it be that Daphne’s death warrant was signed the minute she was given those documents?”

The leak to Caruana Galizia has so far shown that Malta is paying almost twice the market price for gas from Azerbaijan’s state-owned company Socar.  Times of Malta reported that Malta was losing some €40 million a year through the deal negotiated by Minister Konrad Mizzi.

Azzopardi said the Prime Minister could not risk holding an election after this information went public. The Labour Party got elected in 2013 on the promise of cheaper water and electricity bills.

Malta’s security service on Tuesday “categorically denied” that it had any prior knowledge of a plan to murder Caruana Galizia.