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7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 28 JUNE 2026 FEATURE murder and a pardon under the bridge him and a controversial presidential pardon granted to him by Eddie Fenech Adami. Kurt Sansone had approached the prime minister's driver, Charles Borg, known as Is-Sunnara—an old acquaintance from the 1980s when they both acted as bod- yguards to Fenech Adami—to arrange a secret meeting with Fenech Adami. They met in a hut belonging to Borg but it was the infamous clandestine night time meet- ing that took place beneath the Regional Road bridge that remained etched in political imagery. During that meet- ing under the bridge, Fenech Adami informed Żeppi l-Ħafi that he was proposing a pardon that covered several crimes in return for testifying on the Cachia Caruana murder at- tempt. The prime minister's decision to hold secret meetings and his decision to propose a presiden- tial pardon for Fenech, would haunt Fenech Adami for the rest of his political career. In 1999, the Labour Party's pub- lishing arm, SKS, released a book authored by Glenn Bed- ingfield—today's home affairs minister—titled Il-Ġurament, immortalising Żeppi l-Ħafi and the controversial pardon he re- ceived. A livid Fenech Adami had filed criminal libel pro- ceedings against Bedingfield over the book—he dropped the court case in 2004 when he be- came president. Eyewitness discredits Fenech Żeppi l-Ħafi went on to iden- tify Meinrad Calleja as the mastermind behind Cachia Caruana's murder. An act of retribution for his father's re- moval from the army's top post. Fenech claimed he acted as go-between between Calleja and the two people, who had to carry out the hit on Cachia Caruana. The two men implicated as the hitmen were Charles At- tard, known as iż-Żambi, and Ian Farrugia, who confessed their involvement to the police. Attard eventually admitted guilt and was handed down a 14-year prison term. But Far- rugia's case went to trial, where he pleaded innocence. Farrugia was eventually ac- quitted after a key eye wit- ness, Nicholas Jensen, who was Cachia Caruana's neigh- bour, belatedly identified Żeppi l-Ħafi as one of the assailants at the scene of the crime. Fenech had always claimed he was not present in Mdina on the night of the attempted murder. Jensen's clamorous testi- mony cast doubt on Fenech's credibility and was enough for jurors to acquit Farrugia, de- spite evidence showing that he had left a palm print on Cachia Caruana's car. The PN's media arm and a coterie of journalists close to Cachia Caruana in the independent press tried to vil- ify Jensen and discredit those in the independent media, who did not believe Żeppi l-Ħafi's version of events. Meinrad Calleja, whose tri- al took place in 2004, was al- so cleared of complicity in the attempted murder of Cachia Caruana with jurors deliver- ing a 6-3 not guilty verdict. Fenech's testimony was not be- lieved. A day after the verdict, a dis- appointed Fenech Adami ques- tioned the suitability of the jury system in comments he gave re- porters on the steps of Castille. Less than two weeks later, Fenech Adami resigned from prime minister and was nom- inated to become president by his successor Lawrence Gonzi. Zeppi l-Hafi's kambjala In a 2004 interview with Mal- taToday after his trial was over, Calleja recounted how Żeppi l-Ħafi had told him he had "a kambjala (a bill of exchange, in this case meaning a trump card) which he can redeem at any time he wants to avoid jail". Calleja insisted there was "no truth" in what Fenech had been saying. "He is just in a conspira- cy with himself or with whoever commissioned him to save his own skin," Calleja had said. As for Fenech Adami's con- troversial pardon, Calleja had said: "He [Fenech Adami] was too rash in believing him… On- ly he knows what he was told [by Joseph Fenech] in the re- missa (shed), but I have never heard of any prime minister in the world who interfered in this way in investigations, meeting people in suspicious circum- stances without any witness- es, without any police present, against any court condition." After the Cachia Caruana tri- al, Calleja did not immediately walk free . He was still serving a previ- ous 15-year jail term for drug trafficking. He was eventually released from prison in 2006. In the 1980s, Calleja had even spent time in an Italian jail over cocaine trafficking between Brazil, Italy and Malta. Invoking the pardon The pardon Żeppi l-Ħafi was given proved to be useless in establishing guilt in the Cachia Caruana attempted murder but in 2009, Fenech successfully in- voked the presidential pardon to have two additional pending cases relating to cocaine traf- ficking and burglary dismissed. He was later acquitted of fraud charges linked to a failed prop- erty deal in Burmarrad in 2010. Two years later, he was also cleared of charges of damaging a vehicle and causing minor in- juries to a man during an alter- cation in 2010. Little else is known about Żeppi l-Ħafi after 2012 except that his controversial pardon remained a point of reference for Labour Party functionaries when criticising their political opponents. Joseph Fenech's name remains etched in the sidenotes of po- litical history as a man whose connections with Eddie Fenech Adami enabled him to obtain a dubious, wide-ranging pardon linked to the attempted murder of a state functionary—a case whose truth will forever be buried with Fenech. April 2003 with his aide Richard Cachia Caruana Meinrad Calleja (left) with his late father Maurice Calleja. The former was acquitted by jurors on charges that he masterminded the attempted murder of Richard Cachia Caruana The photo that immortalised Zeppi l-Hafi as the notorious person who confessed his involvement in the attempted murder of Richard Cachia Caruana but single- handedly negotiated a pardon for this and other crimes It was the infamous clandestine night time meeting that took place beneath the Regional Road bridge that remained etched in political imagery. During that meeting under the bridge, Fenech Adami informed Żeppi l-Ħafi that he was proposing a pardon that covered several crimes in return for testifying on the Cachia Caruana murder attempt