Police told Cabinet in November 2019 that Fenech had evidence on Montenegro deal

Ministers heard police investigators say Yorgen Fenech had information on corrupt Montenegro and Electrogas deals

Alleged mastermind: Yorgen Fenech
Alleged mastermind: Yorgen Fenech

Malta’s Cabinet of ministers heard the lead investigators in the Caruana Galizia investigation tell them that Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech wanted to spill the beans on the Montenegro scandal back in November 2019.

Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of masterminding the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, had told police he would reveal all he knew about his company Electrogas’s award of the €200 million gas plant, the deal to have Enemalta acquire a Montenegro wind energy project from his Dubai company 17 Black, as well as the Caruana Galizia assassination.

The request was made on the fateful Cabinet meeting of 29 November, after Fenech was arrested while attempting to leave the island on his luxury yacht.

Ministers speak out on Muscat aftermath: We felt used and deceived

Fenech’s demand for a presidential pardon were three times refused by Joseph Muscat and his Cabinet, despite having heard the police present – former Commissioner of Police Lawrence Cutajar, and investigators Keith Arnaud and Keith Zahra – tell them that the magnate wanted to say all about the corrupt deals he had been part of.

But at the end of that seven-hour long cabinet meeting, Muscat said that all requests for pardons from Fenech were denied.

Yorgen Fenech’s 17 Black has been identified as a target company for the secret Panamanian companies opened sometime after 2013 by Muscat’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri and former energy minister Konrad Mizzi.

The police today announced it had already started investigations into the Montenegro wind energy deal, in which Enemalta is believed to have acquired the project for three times its value from an offshore company that bought it from 17 Black.

At the time of the Cabinet meeting in November, Muscat said allegations by Fenech against his former chief of staff Keith Schembri, made after the first pardon was refused, were investigated. “The Cabinet was informed that any other allegation being made was being investigated, actively. I left the final decision with my colleagues. During this part of the meeting, I retired and left all deliberations in the hands of my colleagues. The detailed recommendation of the AG and the CoP was that there was no reason to issue the pardon to Fenech, and the Cabinet accepted this reasoning, unanimously, who decided that it’s not fit to grant a pardon,” he said.

He had then said that as far as investigations were going, Schembri was not involved in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Schembri was present for multiple Malta Security Service meetings which discussed Yorgen Fenech as a main suspect. “I think the fact that we have come so far means the investigation has not been compromised… What I can say for a fact is that I was never asked to keep Mr Schembri out of the meetings,” Muscat had said then.

That same day, Muscat alleged that he had received a message that unless he advised in favour of a pardon for Yorgen Fenech, the magnate would implicate him over two telephone conversations he had with him some months back. Muscat declared that no such calls were ever made.