Yorgen Fenech WhatsApp texts to current Cabinet member to be presented in court

Europol to exhibit messages between Yorgen Fenech and a cabinet member within Robert Abela's government 

Europol will be exhibiting in court “thousands” of WhatsApp messages between Yorgen Fenech and persons of trust within former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s government, as well as people close to the PN’s current leadership.

The messages, which are expected to be exhibited in October, were sent between January and September 2019.

Fenech’s ownership of Dubai based company 17 Black had already been revealed at the time.

Newspaper Illum reported that more than 2,000 messages were sent between the alleged Daphne Caruna Galizia murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech, and a member of Robert Abela's cabinet.

It is not yet clear who the Cabinet member is, and if the messages sent were for personal reasons.

While it is not yet clear what the messages read, sources say there are more than 800 messages between Fenech and former Office of the Prime Minister Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.

The former OPM chief of staff, had spoken about his friendship with Fenech, saying he would go through fire for his friends. But Schembri insisted that Fenech never told him about the murder and never asked for information from him.

Former PM Joseph Muscat had also been interrogated by police over the contents of a WhatsApp group chat with his former chief of staff, and the Tumas magnate.

MaltaToday understands that the contents of the WhatsApp group chat were retrieved from Yorgen Fenech’s smartphone, and contain communications that underpin a certain level of intimacy between the three men.

Under interrogation, Yorgen Fenech had also alleged that Keith Schembri was the mastermind behind the murder, having paid €80,000 for the assassination.

Illum reported that more than 700 messages between Fenech and former PN media head Pierre Portelli will be exhibited in court next October.

Portelli had forwarded Adrian Delia’s candidature for PN leader back in 2017.

In his witness testimony, Keith Schembri had claimed Portelli would meet Fenech once a month to collect €20,000.

The claim came alongside Schembri’s allegation that PN Leader Adrian Delia took €50,000 from Yorgen Fenech to ensure that PN MEP David Casa was not re-elected during the 2019 elections.

Portelli had denied all claims.

The claim that Fenech had offered money to the PN to obstruct Casa’s election bid was first made by PN MP David Thake on TV programme Xarabank in 2019.

While sources could not say whether the claims would be sustained, Illum is informed that there might be messages which speak about MEP David Casa and former PN leader Simon Busuttil.

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