BREAKING/European Court of Auditors candidate rejected for involvement in cocaine cover-up to be made a judge in Malta’s Courts of Justice

This website is reliably informed that Toni Abela, who resigned from the post of the Labour Party’s deputy leader for party affairs to make way for Konrad Mizzi last February, is to be made a judge. The appointment is imminent.

he nomination, made by Justice Minister Owen Bonnici under instruction from the Prime Minister, is currently under review by a sub-committee of the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

This is the reason why Abela has relinquished his brief as lawyer for the Labour Party in the ‘two parliamentary seats’ case and has been replaced by Pawlu Lia and Robert Abela, the former President’s son.

Abela was persuaded to relinquish his position as Labour deputy leader with the promise of nomination to the European Court of Auditors. The European Parliament’s committee voted to reject him – one of the main problems for Abela being his involvement in the concealment of cocaine-dealing at a Labour Party club bar – and Abela withdrew his candidature.

Prime Minister Muscat has since been faced with the problem of how to compensate him, and will now make him a judge. Though Abela’s involvement in covering up cocaine-dealing at a Labour club was considered a major disqualifying factor for the European Court of Auditors, it is clearly going to be no obstacle to his becoming a judge in Malta.

I rang Toni Abela to say that I have heard he is to be made a judge, and does he have any comments to give me? But he said he has no comment to make.

Former Labour Party deputy leader Toni Abela (right), who is to be made a judge, with corrupt government minister Konrad Mizzi, who replaced him as party deputy leader just as news of his company in Panama began to break.