Police did not question Carmelo Abela over his alleged involvement in an infamous attempted HSBC heist in 2010.

In a sitting of a libel case Abela instituted against Jason Azzopardi, the MP and former minister claimed that police had never called him for questioning or launched an investigation against him concerning his role in the heist.

He later clarified that the police did call him in once, but when he arrived officers had little to no questions for him.

“I went to make myself available to the police. Obviously, I narrated the events which I went through, but the police, with regards to this attempted hold up, had no questions,” Abela said according to a Malta Today report.

Abela also claimed that Azzopardi’s claims that he was involved in the heist damaged his reputation abroad, as he was serving as Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time.

However, Abela was coy on whether the issue impacted Prime Minister Robert Abela’s decision to keep him out of the Cabinet.

Abela sued Azzopardi for libel in 2022 after the then-PN MP published a Facebook post implicating the minister in the notorious 2010 failed heist on HSBC’s headquarters.

A few days, Vincent Muscat – who has been convicted for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and who has been facing charges over the HSBC heist since 2010 – said that a sitting minister and former Economy Minister Chris Cardona were both involved in a ‘big job’.

A few days later, Azzopardi delivered a parliamentary speech in which he alleged that Cardona had even been arrested in connection with the heist.

He also said that the sitting minister (who he didn’t name at that stage) had provided the bank robbers with replicas of the keys to HSBC’s headquarters, which allowed them to enter the bank, as well as footage of the bank to show them how to access the vaults.

In April, after Abela mocked him over his infamous trip to Israel, Azzopardi named Abela as the sitting minister, prompting Abela to sue him for libel.

Both Abela and Cardona have denied any involvement in the heist.

Darren It-Topo Debono has pleaded guilty for his role in the heist. However, he has refused to cooperate in court, despite the plea deal.

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