Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1192401
MATTHEW VELLA READERS who followed the week's proceedings in court, where the man turned State's evidence broke down in tears at recalling having once met the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, will be shocked at the allegations of the role of one State functionary in the ensur- ing murder investigation. Less than a month after Caru- ana Galizia was killed, Keith Schembri is alleged of having told mastermind Yorgen Fene- ch that Maltese police had got their hands on an incriminating SMS text placing the killers at the scene of the crime. Fenech and Schembri were tied at the hip by childhood loy- alty and the 17 Black-Panama bond. Now that Malta is getting to grips with this nightmare, of having to hear the painful truth of how a game of cat-and-mouse was being played out in Cas- tille, so far by the alleged hand of Schembri, it is clear that the businessman and trusted Mus- cat confidant must be placed under interrogation to be ques- tioned about the murder and breach of national security. 2 PAGE 16 SUNDAY • 15 DECEMBER 2019 • ISSUE 1050 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BOLD JOURNALISM WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/20YEARS €1.95 The MaltaToday view on Keith Schembri: when will police investigate him? INSIDE • MT2 T T T T T T T T T T T MALTA CRISIS maltatoday Pressure on Brussels for action on Malta MATTHEW VELLA MALTA'S next prime minister can expect intensified scrutiny on his administration from the European Commission, as MEPs pile the pressure on Brus- sels to bring the small member state in line with their expecta- tions on rule of law standards. EC president Ursula von der Leyen will face increased pres- sure now that Joseph Muscat has been forced to resign under the weight of the revelations that his former chief-of-staff, Keith Schembri, was in com- munication with the alleged mastermind behind the assassi- nation of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, soon after the 16 October 2017 murder took place. PAGE 2 Peak Muscat: the outgoing PM chats with the top men and women of the EU in October 2019. His successor will face intensified scrutiny from the EU over rule of law reforms MALCOLM TORTELL Let's be kind to our minds PGS 14-15 SAVIOUR BALZAN Big mates: Yorgen visited Schembri during his treatment in United States PAGE 19 MASSIMO COSTA CHRIS Fearne has promised he would call a conference on good governance and the rule of law, to solve the current political crisis, were he to be elected Labour Party leader. The Deputy Prime Minis- ter, who along with Labour MP Robert Abela is a candi- date for the leadership of the party and Malta's prospective new prime minister, said that, within the first 100 days of being elected he would organ- ise a conference which would include representatives from the Opposition, the country's political parties, civil society and the institutions. The conference, he said, would "take as long as need- ed" to conclude and would have the aim of implement- ing the necessary institu- tional changes to solve the political situation which has transpired as a consequence of revelations emerging from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation. This was one of ten other proposals – which covered areas including transport, the government's social con- science, housing, the Labour Party, migration and the envi- ronment Doctor with the Muscat antidote: Fearne's rule of law pledge PAGE 2 FEARNE and ABELA Let battle commence PGS 8-9