Repubblika files police report over Yorgen Fenech’s reported EUR20,000 watch gift to Muscat

PM says he will not answer ‘deeply manipulated’ information

NGO Repubblika has filed a police report denouncing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for bribery, corruption, and of having conflict between private and public interests after it was reported that Muscat received a €20,000 watch gift from Yorgen Fenech, owner of 17 Black and alleged mastermind behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The report was filed by Jason

Azzopardi on behalf of the civil society group on Thursday, and details how the watch was gifted to Muscat only weeks after Electrogas – the consortium which won the tender for the new gas-fired power station, and of which Yorgen Fenech was the CEO – were on the receiving end of an “unprecedented” €88 million state guarantee to cover a bank loan taken to build the new power station.

The timing of the gift in relation to the authorisation of the bank guarantee is a “clear indication of a criminal act”, Azzopardi wrote in the filing.

It comes after Lovin Malta reported on Tuesday that Fenech had gifted Muscat the watch in the Christmas of 2014, and quoted sources saying that this is not the only gift that the former Tumas Group CEO had given the outgoing Prime Minister.

The white-gold watch is one of only 25 made by world famous brand Bvlgari and was made to commemorate Malta’s accession into the European Union in 2004. Yorgen Fenech’s father, George Fenech, had reportedly bought several of these watches when they were launched, with each one costing some €20,000. Their value is likely to have increased significantly since.

The watch is emblazoned with the Maltese and European flag, and was apparently number 17 out of 25 – 17 being George Fenech’s favourite number. Ironically, 17 was also the number that Yorgen Fenech used in the name of his previously secret offshore company, which was called 17 Black and which is subject to a magisterial inquiry after it was shown that it was one of two companies which would inject €5,000 everyday into Schembri’s and former Minister Konrad Mizzi’s Panama-based companies.

Muscat is yet to react to the matter, and did not answer questions about it from Lovin Malta.

The story is yet another connection between the office of the Prime Minister and Fenech. It comes days after it was reported that Fenech forked out €24,000 to pay for Keith Schembri’s medical treatment in America – Keith Schembri being Muscat’s former chief of staff.

Schembri himself resigned on the same day that he was first arrested in connection with Caruana Galizia’s assassination – which Fenech stands accused as being the mastermind of. Schembri however remains officially under investigation in connection with the case, and several questions have been raised over the police’s approach towards him noting their failure in obtaining Schembri’s phone, which was apparently lost, and passwords.

PM’s reply

In a statement, the Prime Minister said he, “will not engage in answering partial, deeply manipulated information being selectively leaked to parts of the media by someone who is directing the accused in a hideous assassination case to obviously try to build a narrative that is both misleading and self-serving.”

The Prime Minister did his duty in this case despite the fact that he was threatened, as he himself reported, with a smear campaign, the statement said.

“The Prime Minister holds the right to take appropriate action at the right time, as well as answer with facts that will show the manipulation and the pure inventions being circulated right now and others being obviously concocted.

“No amount of personal vendetta timed with vehement spite by someone will deviate from these facts. Meanwhile, it must be noted that the Prime Minister has always followed all the codes and rules related to gifts he received.”

“Ignore the letter of the law and implement its spirit,” Cassola tells Standards Commissioner

Alternattiva Demokratika’s chairman Carmel Cacopardo meanwhile called on the Standards Commissioner George Hyzler on Tuesday to open an investigation into the alleged gift, and into whether Muscat breached ministerial Code of Ethics by accepting it.

He soon found the backing of his former AD colleague Arnold Cassola, who stood as an independent candidate during the last MEP elections, and who called on Hyzler to “ignore the letter of the law and implement its spirit, which is that of affirming strong ethics in political behaviour”.

Cassola’s call is based on the fact that Hyzler is, by law, precluded from investigating matters which happened prior to October 30 2018 – the date of him taking office.

Hyzler had already noted this when he was asked to investigate the €1.5 million loan which Schembri, through Kasco Ltd, had granted to Allied Newspapers and Progress Press in 2012.

“Since I have some knowledge of Commissioner Hyzler's modus operandi, I would not be surprised that he will respond that this case does not fall under his remit since the donation happened in 2014 and he can only investigate cases from October 2018 onwards,” Cassola wrote. “Legally, the Commissioner would be right. But there is much more than legality involved in this issue,” he wrote.

“Commissioner Hyzler must not resort to legal technicalities to avoid examining this case. He should ignore the letter of the law and implement its spirit, which is that of affirming strong ethics in political behaviour,” he continued.

Cassola continued by noting that “there is even an assassination plot here involved”, noting that the alleged gift has massive implications and that there is clearly a “really strong” bond between Muscat and Fenech and that Hyzler has a duty to investigate such a bond between the Prime Minister and the man accused of being the mastermind of the Caruana Galizia assassination.

Tonio Fenech breached ministerial code of ethics by accepting clock gift, Muscat had said in 2013

It’s not the first time that a timepiece is at the centre of political controversy in recent times. Early in 2013, Tonio Fenech – who was Finance Minister in the PN’s government – was exposed as having received a clock worth €5,000 from George Farrugia, who was embroiled in an oil procurement scandal and later received a presidential pardon for his testimony in relation to the scandal.

His testimony is yet to yield any prosecutions, and Fenech admitted to receiving the gift, although he had said that it was worth Lm500 (€1,2000) and not €5,000.

Muscat – then Opposition Leader – had ridden on the back of the scandal and used it as part of his campaign against the Lawrence Gonzi-led PN.

“Fenech knows that the code of ethics binding all ministers expressly forbids the acceptance of any gifts, no matter their value,” Muscat had said in February 2013 – only weeks before the general election.

Muscat had questioned why Fenech had received such a gift, why he hadn’t declared it, and whether he was expected to give anything in return.