JeanPaul Sofia’s Mother Calls Out Robert Abela For Telling Magistrate To Hurry Up And Insists Public Inquiry Is Necessary
JeanPaul Sofia’s mother has warned Robert Abela has got his priorities wrong after the Prime Minister urged the magistrate investigating her son’s death to hurry up.
“Thank you for speaking about magisterial inquiry delays but we know how much work they have on their plate,” Isabelle Bonnici wrote on social media under one of Abela’s posts.
“I know that competent people are working on my son’s case and they need time.”
Bonnici reiterated her longstanding call for a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding her son’s death at a Kordin construction site last December.
“A public inquiry will have an established timeframe and three magistrates, and will investigate avenues where a magisterial inquiry cannot.”
“I want full justice, transparency and reform, not empty words as we saw after the Miriam Pace tragedy.”
“This won’t hinder the magisterial inquiry and will help lead towards a serious reform,” she said. “I want total justice and for no other parent to pass through what we are passing through.”
“I am ready to meet with everyone who is willing to meet me but no one from government has had the decency to at least answer me. Do none of you agree with my request?”
In Parliament yesterday, Abela criticised magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia for dragging out her inquiry into the Sofia case, stating it is “unacceptable” for a magisterial inquiry into an incident that lead to a death to remain pending three months down the line.
However, he refused to engage with Bonnici’s call for a public inquiry, which could clarify the responsibilities and shortcomings of different players in the construction industry above and beyond the direct criminal responsibility of the Sofia case.
Bonnici told Lovin Malta that she had an 80-minute meeting with Abela at Castille but that the Prime Minister was dead-set against ordering a public inquiry.
“I could see his humanity but he was adamant against holding a public inquiry,” she said. “He said it will become a political football and began using legal jargon so that I wouldn’t understand him. I told him that although I’m not a lawyer, I knew he wasn’t giving me a valid reason not to hold a public inquiry.”
“I remember he kept saying ‘għandek raġun’ (You’re right)… I felt it was clear that his hands are tied and something is holding him back.”
Should a public inquiry be held into JeanPaul Sofia’s death?
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