Update 3 | Yorgen Fenech back in police custody

No further arrests took place during the night when Fenech was released from custody on police bail and placed under strict surveillance • Foreign experts helping police in the investigation

21 November 2019, 9:06pm
by Kurt Sansone

2 min read

Yorgen Fenech

Updated at 11.25am, Friday with more details on investigation

Yorgen Fenech is back in police custody and this morning accompanied investigators as they searched his yacht at the Portomaso Marina.

Fenech was released on police bail yesterday night, several hours before the expiry of the 48-hour time window that he could be kept under arrest.

However, Fenech was back in police custody this morning, kicking off another 48-hour time window. Fenech's house was also searched by the police.

The former CEO of the Tumas Group is a person of interest in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation. However, it is likely that the police have also widened their net to include money laundering and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit is being consulted.

Sources said police investigations are painstakingly piecing together the picture before proceeding with further prosecutions, a process that requires more time.

Foreign experts are understood to be helping police on the various lines of investigation.

Fenech was arrested on Wednesday morning after army patrol boats stopped him from leaving Malta on board his yacht.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning that Fenech’s arrest on Wednesday was a precautionary strike and not the police’s preferred course of action.

Fenech and others were put under surveillance on Tuesday after the Prime Minister confirmed reports that the police had in custody the presumed middleman in the murder and that he was considering recommending a pardon.

The news that the police had the middleman in their hands may have raised alarm bells among those possibly involved in the Caruana Galizia murder, which is what prompted Fenech’s arrest as he tried to leave Malta.

Negotiations are still underway with the middleman, identified by MaltaToday as Melvin Theuma, a tax driver with past cases of usury.

Muscat said the pardon will be given only after Theuma tells the police all he knows. Theuma is being kept in a secure location. On Friday morning he was admitted to Mater Dei Hospital but his condition is not believed to be of major concern.

Kurt Sansone is Executive Editor of MaltaToday. He was formerly deputy editor of MaltaTod...