Yorgen Fenech’s mother speaks out: ‘My son is not a Rambo character’

Yorgen Fenech’s mother, Patricia, is insisting that court submissions by the prosecution that her son was buying “warfare ammunition” are a lie.

In a lengthy post published on university lecturer Simon Mercieca’s blog, Patricia Fenech said this was a mudslinging exercise intended to tarnish her son’s name.

This is the first time she has publicly come out in defence of her son. Mercieca uses his blog, which he describes as ‘a site containing other viewpoints on current affairs’, to defend Yorgen Fenech.

“[It’s] almost a competition as to who can blemish Yorgen’s name the most – indeed even with lies about the buying of warfare ammunition. A Rambo kind of character my son definitely is not,” Patricia wrote, 24 hours after a judge refused her son’s bail request.

During bail submissions in front of Judge Giovanni Griscti on Wednesday, the prosecution said there were emails showing how Yorgen Fenech used Bitcoin to buy cyanide, machine guns, pistols, grenades and ammunition from the Dark Web.

The prosecution objected to bail out of fear that Fenech would abscond and tamper with evidence.

Patricia had offered to act as guarantor while her son is on bail.

The buying spree is understood to have happened towards the end of 2018 after Fenech’s name was outed as the owner of Dubai company 17 Black by Reuters and Times of Malta.

But Patricia decried the prosecution’s arguments, insisting no one has seen the weapons.

“Such calumnies would truly be absurd if it weren’t for the immense negative effect they are leaving on how the trial is being conducted. Apart from this, no one has seen the ammunition/weapons and it has never entered the country. But how many readers stop to think about this before accepting the words of the prosecution as fact? How many thought rationally about the impossibility of actually importing such things by means of the everyday postal service?”

She also cast doubt on who has access to her son’s communication equipment, implying that this was being used by parties other than the police.

Patricia also called out the information released by Matthew Caruana Galizia and subsequently referred to by parte civile lawyer Jason Azzopardi in a letter to the Chief Justice on the purchase of a boat by the judge presiding the bail hearing from Yorgen’s deceased father, George.

The information was a boat transfer certificate showing how the motor yacht was bought from George Fenech in 2008 when the judge was still a magistrate.

Patricia said she was compelled to write after her late husband’s name was bandied about. George Fenech died in 2014.

“I have seen the name of a boat which, when it was sold, was already quite an old boat, and there was nothing illicit in the selling and buying of this boat. If those who published this information are used to making illicit deals, then they must not judge others by their own actions. I would really like to know how they unearthed this information, how deep they dug in order to once more influence the ruling on bail, this time in the hands of Judge Griscti. I would like to know how they trawled the internet (or were there other sources?) to unearth the contract and the photo because this boat had been bought a long time before 2008,” Patricia said.

She lamented the criticism the Fenech family has been subjected to, which has spread to people who knew the family.

“It is as if those who have some kind of contact with us become tainted with some kind of pestilence whereas before the present attack in the media on Yorgen, everyone respected us and no one had anything negative to say about us. Indeed, many people who have come into contact with the family speak only well of the family,” Patricia said.

She took umbrage at the prosecution’s claim that her son would escape if granted bail. She insisted the media attention given to his case, her son is the least likely to escape.

In a decree delivered yesterday the judge ruled against bail. Fenech has been in custody since November 2019 when he was arrested and charged with masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The prosecution this week issued the bill of indictment and is asking for life imprisonment.

Patricia ended her piece by calling for justice but let drop her doubts this would be delivered, describing the ongoing court case against her son as revenge.

“I ask for nothing but justice – if only I could be sure that real justice, not twisted to suit someone’s purpose and intentions, that uncompromised justice is being served. Whole families who have nothing to do with the case are being brought into the fray, apart from my husband who has been dead years now. You must really be looking for a vindication that knows no limits, revenge not justice,” she said.