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“If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, I will personally file criminal charges against you, you bunch of thieves, corrupt people, and liars,” he warned.

“I’ll wait until Valentine’s Day 2025 – then, in that case, I’ll give you the rose myself. Angelo Gafà: this is a formal notitia criminis. What follows is a challenge.”

Shortly after publishing this post, Azzopardi was indeed called in for a police interview, which he has now shared with Lovin Malta.

In the interview, Azzopardi told the police that he learned of the existence of a report by audit firm Grant Thornton which valued the removal of conditions at around €20 million, significantly more than the €8.1 million Fortina paid.

He said that this report was “hidden” by Castille.

Although the deal concerned the lifting of restrictive conditions on land that was already owned by Fortina, Azzopardi referred to the “transfer of land”.

“I know that in recent months, this valuation report reached the NAO, which is investigating this corrupt deal,” Azzopardi told the police.

“I’m using the word ‘corrupt’ and not the NAO, although I hope this report doesn’t take long to be published. However, I have no doubt that there was corruption.”

“I’m convinced that when land valued at €18–20 million – with its valuation concealed by Castille – is sold for just €8 million, that is nothing short of scandalous.”

Azzopardi said he is convinced Abela knew of its existence.

He pointed out that in 2019, Abela – as a Labour MP – had told Parliament that the government was getting value for money out of this deal.

“He was a Cabinet consultant back then and I’m morally convinced that he was aware of this significantly higher valuation,” Azzopardi said.

“Even if, for argument’s sake, one makes the case that he hadn’t known about it back then because he wasn’t the Prime Minister, the OPM chief of staff or the responsible minister, he certainly found out about it after he became PM in 2020.”

“However, he didn’t ask the police to investigate the people involved, and in my dictionary, that means he was complicit and was hiding wrongdoing.”

This valuation report was eventually revealed when the NAO published its report into the land reuse deal last month, and the Opposition questioned why the government didn’t hold out for a better deal.

However, Fortina has argued that it actually overpaid for the lifting of these restrictions. They said experts tested the deal for fair value against a new legal framework regulating condition waivers, and found that the government bill today would have been €4.7 million – ie €3.4 million less than what they paid.

Fortina also argued that the NAO’s report was marred by “material errors, methodological flaws, and internal inconsistencies” that led to inflated values. These included adopting 2019 prices instead of 2017, the year the application to life the restrictions was made, applying ‘airspace value’ instead of actual hotel value, and incorporating omitted sales tax deductions.

After the NAO published its report, Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà confirmed that the police have been investigating this deal for some time.

Meanwhile, activist Robert Aquilina – legally assisted by Azzopardi – has asked the police to investigate the deal for potential fraud and criminal conspiracy. As per a new law, Aquilina will have the right to ask the courts to open a magisterial inquiry if he isn’t satisfied with the police’s response after six months.

Jason Azzopardi told Lovin Malta that this video is evidence that Gafà has known of detailed information about the deal since 18th December 2024 but that the Police Commissioner adopts a policy of “two weights and two measures”.

This is his statement in full.

First of all, allow me to salute the decision taken, and the courage shown by Lovin Malta, to air this clip which to my mind is the very first time ever where the information given by a citizen to the Commissioner of Police concerning a criminal conspiracy and the commission of a major crime involving politicians and public officials is being aired/published.

Secondly, this ought to prove to one and all about what I have been saying concerning the Fortina heist, that is: that Anglu Gafa has known of this specific and detailed information, and the major financial crimes concerning it, since the 18th December 2024 when I voluntarily provided the Financial Crimes Investigation Department with unequivocal details of a multi million euro land valuation, suppressed at the behest of the Office of the Prime Minister in 2019 and afterwards.

Thirdly, hopefully this ought to invite the media and all those of good faith to exact from the Commissioner of Police the reason as to why he sat on this incriminating information for at least 10 months without demanding a Magisterial Inquiry, but simply “opening a Police file” to tick the box.

Readers will surely remember, or ought to at least, that the same Anglu Gafa in December 2015 as a Police Inspector in the Economic Crime Unit had requested the opening of a Magisterial Inquiry to investigate the fuel consumption of Simon Busuttil’s official car, then Leader of the Opposition.

He ought to be asked: once you had opened a Magisterial Inquiry to investigate the odometer of the Leader of the Opposition as a Police Inspector, whose orders are you following now not to open a Magisterial Inquiry into the criminal conspiracy concerning a €13 million heist at the expense of the Maltese taxpayers.

Not to mention the reasonable suspisicion of the corollary crimes of bribery, unlawful exaction, false declarations to a public authority and money laundering in the Fortina heist, all involving public officials?

Fourthly, the passage of time which the Police Commissioner deliberately allowed to elapse has resulted in one of the crimes committed being time-barred.

Not to mention the time honoured dictum that the passage of time results in the erosion of evidence.

In whose interest is Gafa acting by inviting evidentiary loss due to the passage of time in such a mega scandal involving public land?

One final note: I applaud the decision taken by Lovin Malta to blur the faces of the Police officials, and not to publish their names, before whom I gave my declaration last December.

This is not about them.

They did their duty. They listened dutifully.

But they could not proceed due to superior orders. It is not they who failed us, but the Police Commissioner.

In much more mundane matters and crimes, the Police Commissioner has gone and goes running to the Attorney General to ask the Judge in the Criminal Court to issue certain precautionary warrants, like attachment orders when investigating money laundering.

He did no such thing in this mega heist of public land.

Two weights and two measures by Gafa.

Strong with the weak and weak with the strong.