Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri never questioned on 17 Black, former police chief tells Caruana Galizia inquiry

Police never questioned Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri on Dubai company 17 Black, former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar told the Caruana Galizia public inquiry.

Cutajar said the police had received information on 17 Black in March 2018, a full eight months before Fenech’s ownership of the Dubai company was outed in the media.

But Cutajar defended the police’s actions, insisting evidence had to be collected before anyone could be interrogated.

Cutajar continued testifying this morning in the public inquiry probing the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The former police chief said the 17 Black information started being investigated immediately.

The information is understood to have come from an intelligence report filed by the Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit.

Cutajar said two inspectors – Ray Aquilina and Antonovic Muscat – were investigating the case and information was sought from banks in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Montenegro, China and the UAE.

However, when pressed as to why Fenech was not spoken to about 17 Black, Cutajar insisted the police needed to have evidence in hand for disclosure purposes.

“As far as I’m aware, the 17 Black investigations are still ongoing, let alone at that early stage,” Cutajar responded.

In November 2018, Reuters had identified Fenech as the owner of 17 Black, which had been listed as a target client for the Panama companies opened by Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri.

Fenech’s connection to 17 Black placed the company at the centre of the Electrogas deal that was mired in corruption allegations.

When testifying last March, the former head of the Economic Crimes Unit, Ian Abdilla, said he was going to question Fenech about 17 Black in November 2018.

However, Abdilla had told the board that deputy police commissioner Silvio Valletta had informed him that Fenech was sick and could not be questioned. Abdilla’s testimony raised eyebrows because the police did not call Fenech to the police depot for questioning but on Valletta’s suggestion, opted to go to Fenech’s Portomaso office.

It later emerged that Valletta was a friend with Fenech, had dined with him at his ranch and also gone abroad with him to watch a football game.

Asked about the Fenech interrogation incident, Cutajar told the judges that he did not ask why Valletta was aware that Fenech was unwell.

Cutajar told the inquiry that he only found out about Valletta’s and Fenech’s friendship after the recordings came out. 

Asked whether it was normal for a police official to know if a person of interest is unwell, Cutajar said he did not ask about the matter. 

“I didn't ask. I didn't feel I should ask,” he reiterated.

In the previous sitting Alfred Camilleri, the veteran permanent secretary in the finance ministry recounted how as the government faced massive protests last December, Konrad Mizzi has asked Camilleri to say that he was 'not involved.' 

READ MORE: Caruana Galizia inquiry: ‘Look me in the eye, say I’m not involved,’ Konrad Mizzi told finance ministry official

The public inquiry into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is tasked with, amongst other things, determining whether the State did all it could to prevent the murder from happening.

Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb just outside her Bidnija home on 16 October 2017. Three men, George Degiorgio, Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat, have been charged with carrying out the assassination, while Yorgen Fenech is charged with masterminding the murder.

Melvin Theuma, who acted as a middleman between Fenech and the three killers, was granted a presidential pardon last year to tell all.

The inquiry is led by retired judge Michael Mallia, and includes former chief justice Joseph Said Pullicino and Judge Abigail Lofaro.