Peppi Azzopardi Offered To Sacrifice Xarabank After I Was Axed From PBS, Norman Vella Says
Former NET and TVM journalist Norman Vella has revealed that fellow journalist Peppi Azzopardi was willing to sacrifice his popular show Xarabank in solidarity with him after he was axed by PBS in 2013.
“Without his permission, I can reveal that when Joseph Muscat removed me from PBS in 2013, Peppi was ready to sacrifice Xarabank in solidarity with me,” he said. “It was only with my instance that Peppi kept on going without me, until his show was axed too.”
Vella spoke out ahead of a court judgement, over a decade in the making, against former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for unfair dismissal from PBS following Labour’s 2013 election victory.
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In his witness account, Vella said that Muscat threatened him when he warned that “for every hit you give the Labour Party, I will retaliate double with all my might and below the belt where it hurts”.
This threat was confirmed in front of the Employment Commission and in front of ex head of government Communications Kurt Farrugia and TV presenter Peppi Azzopardi, who were present when it happened.
Shortly after the court case began, Vella was arrested at the Malta Airport, where he had been stationed as an immigration officer, after being accused of taking a photo of Kurt Farrugia and PL President Ramona Attard and sending it to Daphne Caruana Galizia. In a sentence, Magistrate Dr Marse-Ann Farrugia confirmed that Vella was arrested without any crime being committed.
Broadcaster and former PBS CEO John Bundy testified that Silvio Scerri, back then the Chief of Staff for the Minister for Internal and Security Affairs, had personally intervened to remove Vella from PBS and give him a job at the airport.
What do you make of this revelation?