Former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri has police bail lifted

Former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri had his police bail lifted yesterday, after he was called in again by the financial crimes police, his lawyer said. Schembri arrived at the headquarters of the Financial Crimes Investigation Department in Ħamrun at around 2pm and was joined by his lawyers - Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo - shortly after. This happened a day after former minister Konrad Mizzi was called in for questioning.

"Today was about the second investigation against our client and we were just informed that this investigation concluded, and that our client is no longer going to be kept on police bail as there is no need for the investigation to continue," Edward Gatt said.

Gatt said that the investigation was into the chats "between my client and others." This is understood to refer to chats with Yorgen Fenech.

Schembri, until November 2019, was the chief of staff at the Office of the Prime Minister. It was revealed that Schembri, Joseph Muscat and Yorgen Fenech had a WhatsApp group between them.

Konrad Mizzi was interrogated for around 90 minutes on Wednesday but did not give comments to the media as he exited the building. He simply said that "we always collaborate with whatever questions are asked." The former tourism minister was assisted by lawyers Jean Paul Sammut and Carol Peralta.

Both Schembri and Mizzi had been questioned in November but were later released on police bail. They had both opened companies in Panama, which were first exposed in the Panama Papers revelations.