Keith Schembri drops libel suit against The Malta Independent over offshore company story

The former chief of staff at the prime minister’s office, Keith Schembri, has dropped a libel suit against The Malta Independent over a story alleging that € 750,000 had been transferred into his BVI ( British Virgin Islands) company in 2014.

A court heard yesterday that Schembri had personally signed a waiver of the libel suit four days after his lawyer renounced the brief in December.

The newspaper’s lawyer, Peter Fenech, only got to know that the libel had been dropped when he turned up for the pre-scheduled hearing yesterday.

The story, ‘Three quarters of a million transferred into PM’s Chief of Staff BVI company in 2014’, was published on 15 September 2016.

At the last hearing, on 2 December, Schembri had not turned up in court but his lawyer, Andrew Sciberras, appeared and formally declared that he was renouncing the brief.

Almost two months later, the respondents got to know that Schembri had personally signed a formal note to waive his suit, “without reservation,” Magistrate Victor George Axiak said as he formally closed the court case.

The case had been against Pierre Portelli, former director ( business and content), David Lindsay as editor of The Malta Independent on Sunday, and Stephen Calleja, editor of The Malta Independent online.

Schembri resigned last November from the post of chief of staff at the OPM and was later arrested and questioned in connection with the police investigations into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.