Magistrate throws out Yorgen Fenech’s breach of rights claim, chides Beppe Fenech Adami

A magistrate has rejected Yorgen Fenech’s claim that comments by Public Accounts Committee chair Beppe Fenech Adami breached his fundamental human rights

PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami did not breach Yorgen Fenech's rights when he associated the Electrogas deal with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia
PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami did not breach Yorgen Fenech's rights when he associated the Electrogas deal with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia

Yorgen Fenech’s human rights were not breached when Beppe Fenech Adami in parliament associated the Electrogas project with Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.

In a ruling delivered today, Magistrate Rachel Montebello said Fenech Adami did not pin the murder on Fenech when addressing the Public Accounts Committee last month. She subsequently ruled that Fenech’s right to presumption of innocence and a fair trial were not breached.

The committee, which is chaired by Fenech Adami, was grilling Electrogas shareholder Paul Apap Bologna.

However, in her ruling, Montebello chided Fenech Adami, insisting he should have been more careful as PAC chair when expressing an opinion about a case that is sub judice and not something the committee was probing.

“Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination and opinions, including political ones, about the motive for the murder, are not functions assigned to the PAC. The court expects that public roles as these are fulfilled with the utmost seriousness and not be used as a platform for politically loaded comments and which are not objective declarations connected with the public fulfilment of the role,” the magistrate said.

During the PAC meeting Fenech Adami had said that “had the Electrogas project not happened, Daphne Caruana Galizia would not have been killed.”

The Nationalist Party MP repeated several times that Caruana Galizia was murdered because of corruption in the Electrogas deal.

Fenech’s lawyers subsequently filed an application with the magistrate presiding over the murder case, claiming that the statements created prejudice in the minds of those who would eventually be called to judge their client.

Fenech is charged with masterminding the Caruana Galizia murder and his compilation of evidence is ongoing.