‘I’m sorry Nicholas’s death cheated us of justice’

The former wife of Nicholas Azzopardi, the man who died in 2010 from injuries sustained in an alleged fall from the bastions of the police CID headquarters in Floriana while under police custody, has said she is sorry that her estranged husband died before he could be prosecuted over the alleged sexual abuse of her daughter.

In a counter-reply to a judicial protest in which Nicholas Azzopardi's father and brother accuse Claudette Azzopardi and her mother Antonia Patinott of fabricating the claims that led to the arrest and consequently the death of Nicholas Azzopardi, his former wife hints that her husband's death cheated her of justice for her daughter.

Azzopardi said that welfare agency Appogg and the police had been investigating Nicholas Azzopardi in 2010 over allegations of sexual abuse against their daughter Kimberly, and that she and her mother had assisted them in investigations. "We did not want to be accomplices in what could have been a criminal act. We wanted to protect the girl's interests and we could not ignore such worrying and serious developments in the child's life."

Now she says she is sorry that Azzopardi died before justice could be done on these allegations.

"The decision to arrest Nicholas Azzopardi was not on account of our report, but after months of investigations by Appogg and the police. We are sorry Nicholas Azzopardi died, because justice cannot be made in his regard over the investigations that had taken place.

"It would have been much better had the police completed their investigations and have Nicholas Azzopardi prosecuted and held up to the light of the facts as they really were. The fact that he died has left a void to that sense of justice that has to be made in his regard, our regard, and that of Kimberly Azzopardi."

Azzopardi and Patinott have also threatened the Azzopardi family with a defamation suit, over allegations in a book they published on the mysterious circumstances of Nicholas Azzopardi's death.

The two women accused Reno and Joseph Azzopardi of engaging in a campaign of intimidation against them, using the press to allege that Claudette Azzopardi had an intimate relationship with police sergeant Adrian Lia, who was Azzopardi's custodian at the time of his arrest.

"The Azzopardi family's persecution is causing us great torment. We have nothing to do with the death of Nicholas Azzopardi, and their untrue allegations are causing us psychological distress, as well as on Kimberly, who has been exposed to the public through the book published by the Azzopardi family which contains unfounded allegations against us."

Azzopardi died weeks after he was recovered in hospital, where he was treated for injuries sustained in a fall from the CID offices. His family claims that Azzopardi was beaten by his police custodians, as Nicholas Azzopardi himself alleged on his deathbed in a recorded video, before being left for dead beneath the bastions of the CID offices.

The Nicholas Azzopardi case has been the subject of three inquiries: originally, the first inquiry declared that Azzopardi had jumped off the bastions. It was later reopened on order of the Commissioner of Police John Rizzo after the arrest and sacking of police sergeant Adrian Lia, and on allegations of eyewitness evidence that was not given due importance.