Yorgen Fenech out on police bail

Business magnate Yorgen Fenech is back out on police bail after his 48-hour arrest deadline expired • Fenech to challenge Cabinet’s pardon refusal

Yorgen Fenech
Yorgen Fenech

The police have not yet pressed charges against business magnate Yorgen Fenech, who is back out on police bail after his 48-hour arrest deadline expired.

Fenech’s arrest deadline expired at around 11am on Friday. The police have not charged Fenech yet, despite having interrogated the man for more than a week in relation to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The police can detain a person for a maximum of 48 hours after which the individual is either released of charged.

Fenech has been released on police bail and remains under strict supervision.

Meanwhile, Fenech’s lawyers are preparing a legal challenge to Cabinet’s decision in the early hours of the morning not to recommend a pardon for the former Tumas Group CEO.

Fenech asked for a pardon to tell all on the murder as he implicated the prime minister’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri as the mastermind in the murder.

Police have so far been unable to corroborate Fenech’s information and after interrogating Schembri at length, released him yesterday evening.

Fenech was identified as the person who commissioned the murder after middleman Melvin Theuma was granted a presidential pardon.

Theuma is understood to have passed on recordings of conversations with Fenech in which Caruana Galizia’s murder was discussed.

MaltaToday yesterday reported that Fenech is said to have paid €450,000 for Caruana Galizia to be murdered.

Details released yesterday by Reuters show how Theuma, acting on Fenech’s behest, commissioned the three killers who carried out the assassination in the summer of 2017.

The three men – brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, and Vince Muscat – are awaiting trial.

The initial plan by the assassins was to shoot Caruana Galizia using a long-range rifle while she was sitting in front of a window at her Bidnija home.

However, the plans changed and the killers opted for a remote-controlled car bomb.

Caruana Galizia was killed on 16 October 2017 just after leaving her Bidnija home.