WATCH | Joseph Muscat denies Fenech lawyers approached him to arrange Schembri meeting

Former prime minister Joseph Muscat denied claims Yorgen Fenech’s defence team had contacted him to arrange a meeting with his former chief of staff Keith Schembri.

“I was never approached by Fenech’s lawyers,” Muscat said in a press conference with journalists. His denial directly contradicts the testimony by his former right-hand man during the Yorgen Fenech jury trial.

He insisted he did not say Keith Schembri lied, but said the context “was completely different.” Pressed further to give the context he was speaking about, the former Labour leader said he would be giving it in the right time.

The former Office of the Prime Minister chief of staff Keith Schembri claimed in court a “very important person” informed him Yorgen Fenech’s defence lawyers wanted to meet him two days before he was set to testify. 

Muscat’s name was subject to a media ban during Fenech’s trial when Keith Schembri was on the witness stand.  

Asked on his relationship with Schembri, Muscat said it has changed due to the different nature of their jobs, but said he remains in contact. So much so that Muscat stated he had informed Schembri on what he would be saying, because he did not do things behind people’s backs.

‘Are you gullible or in on it?’

Journalists also asked whether he had been gullible in allowing Keith Schembri to play him, or complicit in his actions.

In a long-drawn answer, Muscat said that being close to someone does not mean you know everything about them.

“The husband is the last to know,” he said, as he smirked at the journalist asking the question.

He insisted information made available to him did not point to Schembri, also citing the Caruana Galizia family in saying there was no alternative theory to Fenech being the mastermind.

Joseph Muscat also told journalists Schembri was never mentioned before Yorgen Fenech’s fourth statement to the police.

Muscat said security services had advised him not to change his behaviour towards Fenech, so as not to alert him, and that he had treated Schembri in the same way.

He denied telling Schembri that he was being mentioned in Theuma’s recordings. “One, because he wasn’t being mentioned. Two, because if he was, the secret service would have told me. Three, if he was being mentioned, what would I have gone to help him with?”

He said that on the day matters “escalated”, he told Schembri to resign.

On Chris Cardona, he said it had never come to his attention that the former minister could have been involved. A wide-ranging report listing people who could be suspected had named Cardona, but also Daphne Caruana Galizia’s husband, Peter, he said, “as happens in any case involving spouses”.