Prime Minister Robert Abela has lashed out at Jason Azzopardi after he warned that Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Vince Muscat has implicated a sitting minister in a “very serious” crime.

At a political activity today, Abela accused Azzopardi of trying to “condition and undermine” the police in delicate investigations.

“We changed the way the police commissioner and Attorney General are appointed and criticism has stopped, but instead they’re attacking their work from behind the scenes,” Abela said. “You can hardly believe these things but they’re happening under our eyes.”

“Delicate investigations are ongoing into a serious crime or crimes and they’re trying to cut the police’s legs off. That’s the difference between people who believe in institutions and those who say they believe in them while actually harming their work.”

Azzopardi, who is the lawyer of Caruana Galizia’s family, yesterday said Vince Muscat had named this minister when giving police information about an unspecified crime, not the murder of Caruana Galizia, earlier this year.

He was deliberately vague, merely stating that the minister concerned isn’t a lawyer and that he wasn’t implicated in terms of legal advice he had given or a meal or party he had attended.

“The Prime Minister has known about this since March and he’s trying to act like those three monkeys who don’t see, hear or speak,” he said. “This is extremely serious and no wonder we’re living in a mafia state. There is somebody in Cabinet right now who a first-class criminal mentioned in connection with a serious crime that took place a few years ago.”

Today, Sunday Times of Malta reported that Muscat has actually implicated a former high-ranking Labour politician in connection with the notorious failed 2010 heist on HSBC Malta’s headquarters but hasn’t named him.

With regards the sitting minister mentioned by Azzopardi, Times of Malta said this was a reference to a different politician who an associate of Muscat had made “in passing”.

Muscat, along with brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, has been charged with the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and is seeking a pardon in return for information.

What do you make of the Prime Minister’s statement?