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22 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 DECEMBER 2021 NEWS Christmas specials • Crime END-OF-YEAR roundups are never easy, as narrowing down 365 days worth of news into 1,000 words means the end re- sult always ends up doing mea- gre justice to the original sto- ries. Of course, overshadowing everything else in court this year were the slew of ongoing cases involving Yorgen Fenech, relat- ed to the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. For logistical reasons, those cases will be dealt with in a separate article. Here are a few of the bigger court stories from 2021. Money laundering arrests as focus of new FCID The right-hand man of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, together with his father Alfio Schembri, a di- rector of several of the Kasco Group companies, and business partner Malcolm Scerri, as well as financial controller Robert Zammit were charged in March on multiple counts of money laundering, fraud, forgery and corruption. They formed part of a group of 11 people facing charges, which include former managing direc- tors at Allied Newspapers, pub- lishers of Times of Malta. The charges are linked to the sale of a printing press to Al- lied Newspapers and Progress Press, with the court hearing how US$5.5 million (€4.66 mil- lion) were paid in backhanders to Scerri, Adrian Hillman and Vince Buhagiar, the latter being two former managing directors at Allied Newspapers. Schembri was among 11 peo- ple arrested and charged on March 20 in connection with the printing press scandal and a second magisterial inquiry into alleged passport kickbacks. Making up the money laundering numbers Money laundering charg- es suddenly became flavour of the year after the much-await- ed Moneyval report identified strategic anti-money laundering deficiencies, leading to Malta being greylisted in June. Aside from becoming de ri- gueur in drug trafficking and corruption cases, money laun- dering charges were also being pressed together with charges for relatively minor offences, such as cashing cheques for third parties against a fee – a service offered by a number of enterprising small grocery shops. A number of grocers and small business owners have, in fact, been arraigned for such offenc- es, leading it to become some- thing of a standing joke amongst the legal profession, who often quip that money laundering charges are being added to every minor offence to bring up the conviction numbers. But the reality is far less amus- ing to those who have to not on- ly contend with criminal charges and lengthy proceedings, but also the mandatory freezing orders that accompany them. Major crimes In February, three men sus- pected of having supplied the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia were taken in- to custody. Brothers Adrian and Robert Agius, known as Tal-Maksar, and associate Jamie Vella were arrested as murder suspect Vince Muscat pleaded guilty in court to Caruana Galizia's murder. The Agius brothers and Vella had been among 10 people ar- rested in December 2017 dur- ing police raids. The three had been released without charge but George Degiorgio, brother Alfred Degiorgio and Muscat were arraigned over the mur- der. Muscat pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal with the prosecu- Court round-up MATTHEW AGIUS The compilation of evidence against the three youths from Ivory Coast and Guinea who are accused of hijacking a tanker which had rescued them from the sea as they made the perilous crossing from Libya to Malta in 2019 will continue in the new year. This despite magistrate Nadine Lia making steady progress in her unenviable task of hearing the approximately 100, often highly reluctant, non-anglophone witnesses testify about the sea rescue