What do we get to know from Saviour Balzan about Jason Azzopardi, the wannabe lawyer who plays the role of the prince of governance and clean politics?
In his article “When Mark Camilleri asked me for a €100,000 interest-free loan,” Balzan wrote:
“Extortion
Throughout all this period, it was Jason Azzopardi, the former Nationalist MP, who egged on Mark Camilleri to hit out at me.
I kept my cool and let the whole episode unfold. But now they have crossed a line.
The SLAPP action from Steward International against MaltaToday and which contributed to increasing our visibility as a media house under threat, was too much to digest for Jason Azzopardi and Mark Camilleri, so they decided to launch an offensive with the publication of all the Yorgen Fenech chats.
But let me rewind to May last year.
It became obvious to me that Mark Camilleri’s threat to publish my chats at the same time that he was asking for a €100,000 interest-free loan was an attempt to extort money. I did not want to play ball and decided to publish the contents myself and give an explanation. But I also lodged a report with the police against Camilleri and Azzopardi.
There were court decrees and the police did absolutely nothing, treating these two individuals as if they are demi-Gods. The apparent fear to take action against this diabolical pair is based on the fear that they will turn against them.
In contrast to the five criminal actions initiated by the police and the Attorney General against MaltaToday when reporting on the Yorgen Fenech case, no action was taken against Camilleri and Azzopardi.
A cruel man
But if Mark Camilleri is the puppet on a string desperate to get noticed, the real culprit here is Jason Azzopardi.
I have had enough with this hypocritical, self-entitled and cruel man. And when I say cruel, he is not only malicious to those around him but also to those he lived with.
I make special reference to the way he treats his ex-wife, who has to live with constant pressure from him and has not been able to live a normal life with a decent income.
So here we have Jason Azzopardi picking on people who knew Yorgen Fenech, when he not only demanded freebies from the Tumas Group, but had free hotel accommodation at Tel Aviv paid for by the company. Mind you, he was supposedly to be on a religious holiday in Israel at the time but in fact was on a secret amorous break with his partner.
Here is a guy who ate freely from the Hilton pool bistro and restaurants and in his typical miserly fashion never paid a bill. A tradition which he upholds to this day with visits to other restaurants.
But it does not stop here. No one could blame him for not knowing that Yorgen Fenech was allegedly involved in crime and murder. But I guess that he did not know is a perfectly fine excuse for him but not for others. A fine example of two weights and two measures.
It gets worse.
A confidential Europol report
When Caruana Galizia was bombed, and murdered in October 2017, Azzopardi was chosen to be in the family’s legal team. It was a good choice considering his legal knowledge and immense drive. He immersed himself in the case, and was privy to various documentation and data. And from the very first day, it was evident that he was the source of many privileged chats and information that were leaked to the media.
The courts knew about it but did nothing. It contributed, in a good and bad way, to taking people down, changing their lives forever. Some were genuine mistakes, others were intentional.
Azzopardi did not stop here. He had in his possession a confidential Europol report which outlined the list of potential persons of interest in the case. He passed this report to ‘trusted’ journalists in different media. The report is a confidential report and should remain so, for it was part of a speculative investigation in the very early days of the case.
But conveniently, in his mischievous manner Azzopardi fanned only one part of the report which pinned suspicion on a certain entrepreneur and for a very short time this was taken up by the media until it was clear that the allegation was far-fetched.
This report was given to Azzopardi by someone in the courts. Whom I do not know. I can guess who but that is what it will be – just a guess.
If the family want to blame anyone, they should blame him not me. All I can say is that I have seen this report, and if I was one of those infamous bloggers I would surely have splashed its contents with all the raunchy details on social media. But I am not one of those bloggers, I am a mainstream media owner.
Neither will I be intimidated by messages on Signal from those who believe they can tell me what to write or say or not what to say.
Retainers from big business
Jason Azzopardi who has a mission to single out all those who had a connection to either Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri or Yorgen Fenech seems to have a panache for being two-faced.
Today he receives retainers from big business. Interestingly, he works with businessmen who also employ Joseph Muscat as their top consultant. It gets even better. He also has a retainer with businessmen who have direct connections with Keith Schembri and his business.
Here is a guy who denies his ex-wife a decent living income even though he had €800,000 in his bank account. And here he is, always portraying himself as some kind of religious zealot. I can only puke.
A pertinent question is where did he get his 800K? But I guess even this is not a justified question because it concerns Saint Jason?
There is so much more about Jason Azzopardi that I can write about. I have only just started.
Decent people in the political parties and those in business should start shutting the door to parasites like him. They are not really interested in the cause but only motivated by money and malevolence.“
