Prime Minister Robert Abela is duty-bound to update the country on the latest developments in the Caruana Galizia investigations and what he has been doing about it, Opposition leader Bernard Grech said this evening. 

Grech was speaking during a short televised address after it was revealed that George and Alfred Degiorgio, two of the men charged with the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, had written to the President to request a presidential pardon in return for information about a number of high-profile crimes. 

Crucially, the Degiorgio’s have promised to implicate a former minister and a sitting minister in these crimes. 

The same allegation has been made by Vince Muscat, the third man accused of the murder and who last month pleaded guilty to his role in it.

Prime Minister Robert Abela had said that he had requested that Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa investigate the claims. He told journalists the following day that Muscat was refusing to divulge the name

Grech said the suggestion that members of the country’s executive could have been involved in major crimes, including the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, was shocking and without precedent.

“This news continues to paint a picture of an intimate relationship between criminality and the governments of Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela. The Prime Minister has a duty to explain to the nation what is happening as soon as possible,” Grech said. 

“We can’t act though nothing has happened. The Prime Minister must explain what he did in the past months, since finding out about these allegations.”  

He insisted that the latest revelations showed that the contrary to the Prime Minister’s claims, the country’s institutions weren’t in fact working.

“These allegations are doing irreparable damage to the country’s credibility and reputation,” Grech said, adding that the fact that the former Prime Minister’s chief of staff was sitting in prison required Abela to be transparent with the nation. 

The PN, he said, was insisting on justice for all those involved. 

“This is another episode that again confirms the desperate need for our country to turn over a new page.”

Do you agree with the Opposition leader?