PN MEP David Casa and former Socialist MEP Ana Gomes have flatly refused to meet with the men accused of assassinating journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, saying that “politicians have no place negotiating with suspected murderers being held in custody”.

They were reacting a request by two of the accused – brother Alfred Degiorgio and George Degiorgio – for a meeting in the presence of “a foreign journalist”. It is not clear what they hoped to achieve with the request for such a meeting, the last in a long list of moves made by the accused that has resulted in a string of delays.

“If the accused want to make a confession, they should do so to the magistrate and if they want to make a public statement claiming innocence they can do so in court or by releasing a statement via their lawyer,” Casa and Gomes said in a statement.

“The only role that parliamentarians can play in a criminal case is to hold authorities to account. They cannot do the job of a magistrate, the police or the prosecutor. They can only see to it that those people are doing their jobs properly,” they added.

The Degiorgio brothers, as well as Vince Muscat, stand accused of planting and detonating the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia a few metres away from her Bidnija home on 16 October 2017.

The accused have filed a number of constitutional cases as the compilation of evidence has dragged on since their arrest soon after the assassination. They will shortly be released on automatic bail if the Attorney General does not proceed to file charges before the summer.