I have never been questioned or interrogated by the police - Yorgen Fenech

“I have never been questioned or been asked to be interrogated by the police or any other law enforcement authority throughout my life,” Yorgen Fenech told a foreign media outlet when questioned about the Dubai-based company 17 Black.

Questioned by Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) about 17 Black in relation to an investigation that the news outlet was carrying out into the ownership structures of several iGaming companies which target Sweden, Fenech said that the revelations surrounding 17 Black were “speculation lacking evidence,” but he did not confirm or deny claims that he is the owner of the controversial company.

“I do not know of any police investigation in my case,” Fenech is reported to have told DN.

Yorgen Fenech’s name was thrust into the spotlight last November when Reuters and the Times of Malta reported that he was the owner of the Dubaibased company 17 Black – a company named as one of two which would pay $2 million into the Panama companies belonging to Minister Konrad Mizzi and the OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Besides being the CEO of the Tumas Group, Fenech is also the director of Electrogas, the firm operating Malta’s new gas-fired power station. The power station was a key pledge in Labour’s electoral campaign in 2013 and fell under Mizzi’s remit back when he was energy minister.

Days after this revelation, Jus- tice Minister Owen Bonnici addressed Parliament and said that a magisterial inquiry focusing solely on 17 Black had been launched weeks before the revelations on the company’s ownership were published.

The inquiry, which was called for by the police force, was opened some weeks prior to the revelations and was ongoing, Bonnici said on 19 November 2018. It was being led by Magistrate Charmaine Galea, Bonnici had said.

On 7 January 2019, Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar refused to say whether 17 Black was under investigation, instead telling the Times of Malta that the police could not inform the public of each and every case being probed, including those of public interest. He added, however, that “every case referred to the police, both by individuals as well as by other entities, is investigated.”

Fenech’s answers to DN come in the wake of a European Parliament Money Launder Committee hearing on 17 Black, during which Minister Bonnici was among those questioned. During the hearing, Maltese and Dutch MEPs said that the links between the company and Malta’s top politicians must be investigated as they could prove to be of importance to the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.

To this Fenech said that he was not aware of comments made by MEPs, telling DN: “I do not know that I would have been mentioned in any of this, which would be false, impoverished and obviously slander.”