Abela invokes prescription on standards investigation into Xewkija land purchase

Prime Minister Robert Abela invoked prescription to block a Standards Commissioner investigation into the purchase of land in Xewkija, Momentum leader Arnold Cassola said on Monday.

The request for an investigation had been made Cassola, who had questioned why €180,000 utilised for the land purchase had not been declared in his 2022 asset declaration.

He has filed the request for investigation following a Shift News report which claimed there had been a €180,000 discrepancy in his personal wealth declarations to parliament in 2021 related to the purchase of a plot of land in Xewkija.

Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi said he had to close the investigation, saying the prescription period is too short and should be extended.

"When a Prime Minister resorts to the prescription term to avoid being investigated for wrongdoing, this is the biggest admission that he has in fact committed a wrongdoing,” Cassola said.

He said Malta is really “in a sorry state” when the Prime Minister had to resort to the tactics of a criminal lawyer in court in order to avoid full transparency on his behaviour.

“In these five years, the lawyer Robert Abela has never understood what being a Prime Minister of all the people means,” he said.