Maltese businessman charged with complicity to murder in journalist case
VALETTA (Reuters) - One of Malta’s wealthiest men, Yorgen Fenech, was charged in a Valletta court yesterday with complicity to murder in the car bomb killing of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in
2017.
The leveling of official charges against
Fenech marked a milestone in the investigation into the murder of Caruana Galizia, a campaigning journalist who investigated and exposed corruption. Fenech’s alleged ties to ministers and senior officials has also spawned a political crisis for the government of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who appeared close to resigning yesterday.
Fenech pleaded not guilty to the charge of complicity to murder and to other charges related to the case, which include membership of a criminal gang, and conspiracy to cause an explosion.
In a statement, Muscat told Reuters he would speak about his future after the hearing. Official sources said he was expected to announce his resignation later in the evening or today.
No official statement has been issued.
Asked about this before Fenech was charged, a spokesman for the prime minister said that Muscat “has pledged various times he wants to see this case through. He will make announcements in due course.”
HUSHED COURTROOM
Fenech, 38, who was until this month chief executive of one of Malta’s largest companies, the property-to-energy Tumas Group conglomerate, was taken to court in handcuffs in a police van under a heavy armed police escort almost two years to the day since three other men were charged with having set off the bomb that killed the journalist on Oct. 16, 2017.
The three have pleaded not guilty and are still awaiting trial. Dressed in a charcoal suit and dark glasses, shaven-headed Fenech stood up to hear the charges in a hushed courtroom less than a metre away from the three sons of Caruana Galizia, who were also joined in the courtroom by her husband Peter, her parents, Michael and Rose Vella, and her sisters.
With music from a nearby bar drifting into the courtroom, the businessman made no application for bail.
Fenech said when he spoke to journalists on Friday that the “truth will come out” and, in court filings, he has made clear he intends to implicate other key members of Muscat’s government, in both the murder plot and other corruption.
Sources briefed on the murder investigation told Reuters that police regard Fenech as the mastermind of the journalist’s killing. But, in court filings, Fenech has tried to implicate Muscat’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri, who was arrested on Tuesday in connection with the murder but released without charge two days later.
Immediately after the hearing, the family of Caruana Galizia urged authorities to continue to probe into who else was involved in the murder.
The family said: “We now expect the Prime Minister to leave office, and parliament, with immediate effect to allow a free and full investigation into his and Keith Schembri’s role in Daphne’s assassination.”