WATCH: ‘I Never Abused Of Any Drug In My Life,’ Says Chris Cardona As He Denies Overdose Claim
Labour Party deputy leader Chris Cardona will volunteer full access to his medical records to prove he never had an overdose contrary to what was claimed this week in court.
“I will give my consent to anybody, anybody who’s interested, be it Repubblika, be it the Civil Society Network, yourself as a journalist, lawyers of the Caruana Galizia family, the family themselves, the sons of Daphne Caruana Galizia, in order to check this out on my behalf,” he told Lovin Malta in an extensive interview.
“I am a hundred percent sure. This never happened. I mean, I never abused of any drug in my life. I never abused of any pills in my life. I never suffered any overdose in my life. I was never admitted to hospital in my life,” the former Economy Minister said.
On Monday, State witness Melvin Theuma told the court he had been told Cardona had been hospitalised following a pill overdose due to his worries over the murder of Caruana Galizia.
Cardona, who believes he is a victim of an attempted frame-up, does not believe Theuma is part of the plot to frame him but was intentionally misguided by those who did.
Cardona, who denies any relationship with the Degiorgio brothers accused of executing Caruana Galizia, is also happy to give the police access to his mobile phone to prove he never had any communication with the men.
He refutes the idea that his number appeared on the Degiorgios’ burner phone because he was never asked about that by the police.
“I was never asked whether my number, why my number, could have been in one of the burner phones… I would presume that had this been the case, and Europol or Interpol had found my number, this question would have been asked to me in the investigation process.”
“If the police are going to tell me ‘Listen Chris, we need your phone’, I would give it for sure. I am not privileged anymore with confidential documents from Cabinet. My phone I use for my personal use. And I have no problem at all in exhibiting or in giving my phone to the police for their research. I’ve never lost my phone, changed my phone, bought a new phone (in years), never,” he said.
Cardona denies having any financial relationship with the Degiorgios, he denies any involvement in getting Alfred Degiorgio’s daughter a summer job at Malta Enterprise, and he denies ever trying to help the Degiorgios acquire a medical marijuana license – which he says would be impossible anyway given the structure of the licensing process.
Cardona and Caruana Galizia were fierce critics of each other, particularly after the journalist accused him of attending a German brothel while on state business, something he vehemently denies.
Asked if he wants the TAP files proving his whereabouts at the time to be published, Cardona was less than enthused.
“I don’t think I have the authority to do that,” he said, adding that he had never objected to it except for the fact that his lawyers felt it would create a precedent in civil proceedings.
“I don’t really care about anything in the past because what I think is that, probably, had I passed through the same, through the same historical kind of issues, I probably wouldn’t have instituted court cases or libels or, or guarantees. I don’t know… With hindsight people are much more clever and I mean, sitting in an armchair and trying to correct history, you know, I mean, that is very easy to do, you need to be in that situation, that particular time in order to see how you have to react.”
Despite believing he is being framed by people close to him, Cardona holds back from pinning things on ex-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s former Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.
“No, I hold back from making that connection because I don’t have the proof to substantiate that,” he said, adding that Schembri had repeatedly denied, “through intermediaries”, his involvement in the original frame-up letter.
A letter detailing Cardona’s involvement in the murder had been found by police and was alleged to have been passed on from Schembri to prime murder suspect Yorgen Fenech via their mutual doctor.
Asked if Muscat was one of Schembri’s intermediaries to deny his involvement, Cardona claimed he never discussed the letter with the former Prime Minister.
Cardona, who is resisting calls for his resignation, met with Prime Minister Robert Abela yesterday to explain why. The outcome of the meeting is not yet known.
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