Silvio Valletta says he was unaware of Yorgen Fenech’s suspected involvement in Caruana Galizia murder

Former deputy police chief Silvio Valletta has said he was unaware that Yorgen Fenech was a person of interest in the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder when he travelled overseas with the business magnate to watch a football game.

In a statement on Sunday, Valletta denied any wrongdoing and said he would have never travelled abroad with Fenech had he known he was being investigated.

Valletta was responding to reports that he had travelled to the UK with Yorgen Fenech in September 2018 to watch a football match.

At the time, Fenech was already a person of interest in the investigation into Caruana Galizia’s assassination. In June that year, Valletta had suspended himself from the investigation into the journalist’s murder after a court ruled that he desist in taking part in the case as a result of a potential conflict of interest due to his marriage to Gozo Minister Justyne Caruana.

“After reports in the media concerning me, I am declaring the following: I never knew about the involvement of Fenech in the case,” Valletta said.

“After the Constitutional Court’s decision of 13 June 2018, I informed the police corps that I was going to stop my involvement in the investigations immediately, as I in fact did,” he underlined.

“When I was in the FIAU board I was not privy on [the Unit’s] reports or about whom they were.”

“I had decided to not continue working in the corps because of the criticism levied at my wife.”

Valletta said that he and his wife, minister Caruana, had a “professional relationship where we didn’t speak about work.”

“I never did anything wrong and would never go abroad with someone whom I knew, or thought, was being investigated,” he said.