Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

The Home Affairs Ministry chief of staff used convicted criminal Charles Attard, nicknamed iż-Żambi, as an intermediary to speak to the man wrongly accused of committing a hold-up, according to Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi.

Dr Azzopardi said it was “outrageous” and “scandalous” how Silvio Scerri, a high-ranking ministry official used a criminal – convicted of the 1994 attempted murder of former EU Ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana – to speak to a main witness of a Police Board inquiry into this blunder.

Mr Scerri immediately denied this claim, saying it was Daryl Borg, his mother Jane and a third person who he did not know who turned up at the ministry on Tuesday afternoon asking to speak to him.

It is worrying how a high-ranking officer was buddy-buddy with a convicted criminal

He said he spoke with them for 10 minutes and urged them to give their version of events, which led to Mr Borg’s arrest and imprisonment a week earlier. Mr Scerri said they accepted and so he called retired judge Franco Depasquale, who is heading the inquiry, to tell him they wanted to testify.

Mr Borg appeared before the Police Board on Wednesday.

In his press conference, Dr Azzopardi said he expected “better judgement” from Mr Scerri.

He claimed that on Tuesday, Mr Scerri contacted Mr Borg through Mr Attard who told him to go to Valletta to speak to him.

Mr Borg, his mother and iż-Żambi met Mr Scerri for 30 minutes. Mr Scerri asked Mr Borg several questions, including why he was praising Inspector Elton Taliana in the media, Dr Azzopardi claimed.

Inspector Taliana was the officer who arraigned the culprit of the hold-up on a Birkirkara store and who pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him.

According to Dr Azzopardi, Mr Borg said he did not know the inspector but had he not done his job and found the culprit, he would still be in jail.

“It is worrying how a high-ranking officer was buddy-buddy with a convicted criminal,” Dr Azzopardi said.

He insisted that at no point was Mr Borg formally invited, through proper summons, to appear before the board.

“The Government has to assume responsibility for this. I am expecting the same responsibility and accountability that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was expecting prior to the March elections,” he argued.

Dr Azzopardi also condemned manoeuvres, especially by Labour media, to place Inspector Taliana in a bad light when he had done his job and arraigned the culprit of a crime.

“We have reached a situation where what was wrong, became right. This is supposed to be an independent inquiry. How independent will it remain if someone outside the police board intervenes?” Dr Azzopardi asked.

But Mr Scerri told The Sunday Times of Malta it was Mr Borg and his mother, Jane, accompanied by a third person, who turned up at his ministry on Tuesday at 2pm requesting to speak to him. He insisted he did not know iż-Żambi and he had never seen him before.

Contacted yesterday, Ms Borg confirmed she had accompanied her son and Mr Attard, who the family knew, to Valletta after the latter told her son he would “take him somewhere to speak to someone” about his ordeal.

Reacting to the allegations, the Government accused Dr Azzopardi of attempting to prejudice the Police Board investigation.

It insisted that it was Mr Borg who approached the ministry, and that since he revealed new facts, he was encouraged to relay these to the Police Board.

The ministry expressed its confidence in Judge Depasquale and said the conclusions would cast more light on the case and the motives which led Dr Azzopardi to make his comments yesterday.