Jason Azzopardi has claimed that revelations of his Tumas Group-funded Tel Aviv trip were “invented” into a scandal in order to divert attention from police action against Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.

The PN MP and parte civil lawyer in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case took to social media to speak his mind on the matter, claiming that a scandal was “invented” one week before police arrested Mizzi and took Schembri in for questioning.

“They invented a story and turned it into a scandal last week because they knew that soon enough they would arrest Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi,” he said.

Last night, disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi was put under arrest and was held by the Economic Crimes Unit’s offices in Ħamrun overnight.

Earlier today, Keith Schembri, the disgraced former chief of staff to former prime minister Joseph Muscat, was also taken in for questioning.

These developments have led Azzopardi to believe that his “invented” story was brought to the limelight in order to deter public attention from the arrests.

“Look at the ministers who went on holiday in 2017 with Yorgen Fenech’s private jet, they did not write about them,” he ended.

Azzopardi has also found himself in hot water after breaching the MPs’ code of ethics for his stay at the Tel Aviv Hilton hotel paid for by Tumas Group which is owned by Fenech.

Under the ethics code, no gift should be accepted from persons or businesses “that have or had any direct or indirect interest in legislation”. Moreover, the PN Spokesperson for Justice failed to declare that the trip was partially funded by someone with a direct interest in legislation.

Over the past week, Azzopardi has suspended himself from the PN Parliamentary Group pending an internal investigation.

He had also requested that Malta’s Standards Commissioner investigate his five-day stay in Tel Aviv but it was denied as the 2017 trip predated his remit.

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