News that Yorgen Fenech may have requested a presidential pardon has brought stinging criticism from a senior cabinet member, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo, where he also warned against wealthy elites who act above the law.

“We are at a crossroads. We will be a worse-off country if we protect murderers and money launderers; a better place if justice is carried out with everyone without fear or favour.”

“Some 100 years ago, honest people who loved their country worked to create the Labour Party because they wanted a just society: not only in the redistribution of wealth but also in the safeguarding of the law, where everyone would be equal before the law and not people of wealth or in power ruling over all,” Bartolo wrote on Facebook.

The Education Minister is one of the very few people within the Labour Party administration who has publicly criticised the decision to keep Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Schembri ever since the Panama Papers scandal.

On Friday, Bartolo released another cystic post, calling for people implicated in the assassination to shoulder responsibility.

Yesterday, Fenech reportedly requested a presidential pardon. He is currently on police bail after being taken to Mater Dei hospital after he complained of chest pains.

Fenech, the owner of the infamous 17 Black company that was allegedly set to send millions to Mizzi and Schembri’s accounts, is the main suspect in the assassination.