Secret Cachia Caruana recording | De Marco family deplores Labour over broadcast

The widow and children of Guido de Marco have issued a statement deploring the Labour Party for "attempting to implicate" the former President in the 1994 attempt on the life of Richard Cachia Caruana.

The statement was signed by Violet de Marco, and her children Gianella de Marco, Fiorella Camilleri de Marco, and tourism and environment minister Mario de Marco.

A recording of Cachia Caruana broadcast in the Labour party media this week shows the former personal assistant to Eddie Fenech Adami had "no doubt" that former deputy prime minister Guido de Marco fomented resentment against him, with the family of Brigadier Maurice Calleja, when the army chief was made to resign his post over his son's drug conviction.

In the recording, Cachia Caruana is heard taking umbrage at the fact that the man accused of commission the hit on him had been defended first by De Marco's daughter, criminal defence lawyer Gianella de Marco. 

The De Marcos however accused Labour of implicating Guido De Marco in the attempted murder.

Cachia Caruana has categorically denied ever having implicated the former minister. In their statement, they reiterated a statement by the former ambassador that it was "shocking and inconceivable to suggest that he ever believed that Nationalist ministers were involved in the attempt on his life."

The De Marcos said they would take criminal steps against the PL and its media for its defamatory attack on the collective memory of Guido de Marco. "Labour does not even have respect for the memory of a dead person... this was an obscene and shameful attempt to use the memory of Guido de Marco for their political and partisan aims."

In the recording, Cachia Caruana is heard saying: "I have no doubt, whatever he says, even though I talk to him and I smile at him and we sort of get on - I have no doubt li hu lil Maurice Calleja qallu 'din mhux xi cucata ta' Richard Cachia Caruana' [this must be some ruse by Richard Cachia Caruana] - I have no doubt right because of the way things developed."

Cachia Caruana is also heard saying in the recording that he had taken umbrage at the fact that De Marco's daughter, Gianella Caruana Curran, was Meinrad Calleja's defence lawyer in the charges brought against him: "Let us not forget what I have been through, with Guido's children defending the person who tried to kill me... I think frankly at that stage I should have left the party and I should have left the government and I should have left everything okay."

The Nationalist Party has been left reeling from a public display of infighting where one of its own MPs whose parliamentary vote forced the resignation of Cachia Caruana from EU ambassador, was now seeking his expulsion from the party.

In the morning, the transcript of a telephone conversation between Gordon Pisani, the prime minister's chief of communications, revealed that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando had not informed the PN of a contract that betrayed his alleged ignorance of a planning application for a disco on his land in Mistra; later in the afternoon, PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier accused Labour leader Joseph Muscat of orchestrating a case of political vendetta against Richard Cachia Caruana.