Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1192401
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 DECEMBER 2019 NEWS 17 Black and the murder timeline April 2016 Daphne Caruana Galizia asks her son, Matthew, whether he knows anything about 17 Black and Macbridge. Mat- thew believes his mother must have re- ceived information from someone who had direct access to the servers of Nexia BT that was being probed by the FIAU over the Panama Papers. Nexia acted as accountant for Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. 22 February 2017 In a very cryptic post on her blog, Daphne Caruana Galizia pastes the words '17 Black Dubai' below the pho- tos of Keith Schembri, John Dalli, Jo- seph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi. 27 February 2017 Caruana Galizia elaborates on 17 Black and describes it as "the company which those crooks use to move mon- ey in and out of Dubai". She also says that the Financial In- telligence Analysis Unit and the Po- lice Commissioner know all about 17 Black. Undisclosed period 2017 Months before the general election, Yorgen Fenech meets Melvin Theuma near the Blue Elephant restaurant in the Hilton, St Julian's, and asks him whether he knows George Degiorgio because he wanted "to kill Daphne Caruana Galizia". Fenech says the journalist was going to publish infor- mation about his uncle Ray Fenech, chairman of the Tumas Group. Undisclosed day 2017 A day later, Theuma meets the De- giorgio brothers at the potato shed in Marsa. They ask whether the person commissioning the crime is willing to pay. Undisclosed day 2017 During a meeting at the Busy Bee in Msida, Alfred Degiorgio tells Theuma that the fee is €150,000, with €30,000 being paid upfront. Undisclosed day 2017 Yorgen Fenech informs Theuma he will be receiving a phone call from Sandro Craus from the Office of the Prime Minister. Craus arranges a meeting at Castille between Theuma and Keith Schembri. This is when the photo between Theuma and Schem- bri is taken. Schembri leaves it up to Craus to find Theuma a government job. 1 May 2017 Prime Minister calls general election. Records show that Melvin Theuma starts his phantom job with the gov- ernment for which he receives three or four pay cheques before the money stops after the June election. May 2017 On an undisclosed day after the elec- tion announcement, Yorgen Fenech calls Melvin Theuma and asks him to tell the Degiorgios to "stop every- thing". The murder plans are aborted. 26 May 2017 The Malta Independent publishes a story claiming that an investigation by the Financial Intelligence Analy- sis Unit showed how a Dubai-based company identified as 17 Black had received money from the agent of the LNG tanker at Delimara. The leaked report alleged that 17 Black had to transfer the cash to the accounts of two Panama companies set up by Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. The FIAU report is not a finalised ver- sion and the agency continues work- ing on the case. 3 June 2017 Malta goes to the polls after an acri- monious electoral campaign in which corruption takes centre stage. 4 June 2017 The election result is out and the PL wins by an even bigger majority. Yor- gen Fenech calls Melvin Theuma and tells him: "Get on with it. I want to kill Daphne." June 2017 Melvin Theuma drives Yorgen Fene- ch to the airport. During this trip, Fenech passes on a brown envelope with €150,000 for the assassination. Summer 2017 Yorgen Fenech pesters Melvin Theu- ma repeatedly to get the assassination over with because he feared that Caru- ana Galizia was going to publish the information. Theuma gets the feeling that the information concerned Yor- gen rather than his uncle Ray Fenech. 16 October 2017 Daphne Caruana Galizia is assas- sinated with a powerful car bomb. Government immediately ropes in the American FBI and Europol to help with the investigation. Around 29 November 2017 Melvin Theuma says that around this date, the Degiorgio brothers and Vince Muscat are tipped off about a massive police raid that is to happen around the 5 December. Theuma says Yorgen Fenech got to know of the raid. 4 December 2017 A massive police raid on the Marsa potato shed leads to the arrest of the George Degiorgio, Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat. Seven other men, including the Maksar brothers, Adri- an and Robert Agius, are arrested but later released. 18 April 2018 The Daphne Project reveals that 17 Black and a second company, Mac- bridge, were listed as a "target clients" of the Panama companies opened for Mizzi and Schembri. The Prime Min- ister's chief-of-staff releases a press statement admitting his company Till- gate had drafted business plans with 17 Black and Macbridge but nothing ever came out of them. He also denies any knowledge of money transfers. This is the first time Schembri ad- mits his linkage with 17 Black. Mizzi sticks to his guns, insisting he has no knowledge of 17 Black. The Daphne Project also reveals that the Maltese FIAU traced two pay- ments to 17 Black totalling $1.6 mil- lion, one of which was from a Sey- chelles company called Mayor Trans owned by an innocuous Azerbaijani national. 9 November 2018 Reuters reveals that the owner of 17 Black is Tumas Group CEO Yorgen Fenech and the company has an ac- count at Noor Bank in Dubai. Reuters says that an FIAU report identifying Fenech as 17 Black's owner was sent to the police in the spring of 2018 for a money-laundering investigation. 20 November 2019 Yorgen Fenech is arrested on his yacht as he tries leaving from the Portomaso Marina. He is taken in for questioning and is identified as a "per- son of interest" in the Caruana Galizia murder investigation. Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech and his henchman now turned State's evidence Melvin Theuma. Theuma revealed the extent of the intimacy between Fenech and Schembri and the fact that Schembri was informing Fenech of the investigation into the assassination