Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1192401
IT was a February evening when news- rooms would have been winding down their operations that Daphne Caruana Galizia ran a cryptic post on her blog. The post contained no commentary but a single image depicting the faces of Keith Schembri, John Dalli, Joseph Mus- cat and Konrad Mizzi with the words '17 Black – Dubai' beneath them. The title of this cryptic post flashed out a little bit more: '17 Black – the name of a company incorporated in Dubai'. This unusual post uploaded at 6.45pm on 22 February 2017 was most probably when Caruana Galizia's death warrant was sealed. But according to Caruana Galizia's son, Matthew, the journalist got wind of 17 Black and another mysterious company, Macbridge, as far back as April 2016. Testifying during the first session of the public inquiry last week, Matthew Caru- ana Galizia said that he heard for the first time about 17 Black and Macbridge in April 2016, at the height of the Panama Papers scandal, when his mother asked him whether he knew anything about them. Matthew did not know what these companies were – the ICIJ where he worked had not yet received at the time, the second cache of leaked emails from Mossack Fonseca, which contained the reference to 17 Black as a target com- pany for the Panama companies of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. Matthew believes that his mother got her information from a well-placed source who probably had access to the servers of accountancy firm Nexia BT that was being probed by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit over Panama Papers. It remains unclear whether by February 2017 Caruana Galizia had the full picture on 17 Black, including who owned it. But she definitely knew that the FIAU and the police commissioner were privy to its existence. Excerpts of the FIAU investigation were then leaked to The Malta Inde- pendent three months later, in the midst of an electoral campaign dominated by the Egrant saga. It was around this period, before the general election that Tumas Group director and CEO Yorgen Fenech ap- proached his trusted friend, Melvin Theuma, telling him that he wanted to kill Caruana Galizia. In court, Theuma testified that Fenech told him that Caruana Galizia was going to publish information about his uncle, Ray Fenech. Eventually, Theuma told the court, he felt the information that Yorgen did not want published con- cerned him rather than his uncle. Theuma contracted the brothers Al- fred and George Degiorgio, and Vince Muscat, to carry out the hit. The murder came with an asking price of €150,000. But soon after the election was called on 1 May, Fenech asked Theuma to call off the assassination. The plan was re-activated on the Sun- day the election result was out. Yorgen Fenech called Theuma and told him: "Get on with it. I want to kill Daphne." The death sentence was reactivated and on that black Monday on the 16 Oc- tober 2017, Caruana Galizia was blown up in her car as she drove down the road from her house. It was a year after the assassination that Reuters revealed that Yorgen Fenech was the owner of 17 Black, the target cli- ent of the Panama companies opened by Schembri and Mizzi. Whether Caruana Galizia had Fenech's name before she was assassinated is un- clear. But with Yorgen Fenech's name in the picture, the chips started to fall in place. Fenech has been charged with Caruana Galizia's murder but his motive is un- clear, although the fingers all point to- wards the connection between 17 Black, Yorgan Fenech, a mysterious company and the Electrogas power station. However, for one journalist it was too late: she paid with her life because she knew too much. 10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 DECEMBER 2019 NEWS A death warrant written in black Shocking court testimony shows how a leading businessman hatched a plan to eliminate Daphne Caruana Galizia. KURT SANSONE revisits the timeline of events and how the murder plot may have been linked to 17 Black Daphne Caruana Galizia at the 2016 hearings of the PANA committee in Malta. For this journalist it was too late: she paid with her life because she knew too much about Panama and 17 Black Keith Schembri: using libel actions he attempted to manipulate public opinion on the veracity of the claims connecting his Panama ruse to Labour's chief electoral promise, the Electrogas power station