Police Minister Michael Farrugia stressed the importance of “concrete proof” when proceeding with charges against either from the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri or people named by the Egrant Inquiry as having committed some sort of false declaration.

Lovin Malta spoke to Farrugia following a series of revelations yesterday. The first involved Inspector Keith Arnaud confirming under oath that Doctor Adrian Vella had passed on a message to Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech from Schembri, while the former was under arrest.

Despite Arnaud testifying in court over the confession, Farrugia said:

“We need to see whether these declarations that are currently being made are real or not. Eventually, if they are real there will be charges, if they aren’t there will be charged against the person who made the false allegation,” Farrugia said of the claim.

However, when faced with a follow-up question concerning several people named in the Egrant inquiry as having made false declarations to the courts, including whistleblower Maria Efimova and Nexia BT’s Karl Cini, Farrugia once again urged caution.

“They don’t have concrete proof, and if people are charged, they will walk free.”

“Remember when a person is charged for a crime and then walks free, he cannot be charged for the same crime,” Farrugia later added.

Yesterday, Owen Bonnici refused to answer why more than a year after the Egrant inquiry’s conclusions were published no one was charged with making false declarations, as Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said. Rather than answer, he passed on the question to Farrugia.

It would seem that according to Farrugia, concrete proof of false documents doesn’t exist. However, Farrugia would later demand an apology from everyone who persisted on with the Egrant story after the inquiry’s conclusions were published.

On the investigation in the assassination of Caruana Galizia, Farrugia said that the “truth hasn’t necessarily come out yet” and that “investigations were still underway”.

“We will eventually find different stories to the accusations happening today,” he claimed.