Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546315
FACING the prospect of a life sentence on charges he mas- terminded Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder, many expect- ed Yorgen Fenech to bring the Muscat-era system of govern- ment down with him. Instead, while accusing Keith Schembri of masterminding the killing, Fenech's testimony has done little to implicate the sys- tem itself. Fenech largely presented the business and political relation- ships surrounding 17 Black and Electrogas as legitimate. His ac- count echoes the defence previ- ously offered by other protago- nists of the Joseph Muscat years, including Schembri himself, fol- lowing the Panama Papers and 17 Black revelations. Schembri had described these as normal business transactions. The political irony is hard to miss. The Maltese state, through the prosecution, is placing the corruption scandals of the Mus- cat years at the heart of the mur- der case. Yet, Fenech defended his own modus operandi within that same system. And while the accused dragged Muscat's for- mer chief of staff into the mur- der narrative, he simultaneously defended Electrogas, denying any corrupt relationship with Schembri or Konrad Mizzi, and dismissing the significance of 17 Black. Fenech even portrayed his relationships with politicians, police officers, regulators and officials as legitimate business or close personal friendships. Ironically, it was within this intricate web of friendships, which blurred institutional and business roles, that the murder and possibly the subsequent attempts to cover it up, had oc- curred. This is why the prover- bial 'friends of friends' network denounced by Alfred Sant in the 1990s is so applicable to this case. 17 Black, Electrogas leak and the prosecution's case The prosecution's opening salvo clearly placed the motive for the murder in what Fenech feared Caruana Galizia was about to publish. The indict- ment alleges that after the mur- der plot resumed following the 2017 general election, Fenech repeatedly pressured Melvin Theuma to ensure the killing was carried out quickly because he believed Caruana Galizia was preparing to publish damaging information concerning him. The prosecution placed this against the background of Caru- ana Galizia's investigations into Electrogas, 17 Black and the se- cret offshore companies belong- ing to Schembri and Mizzi. 17 Black was a Dubai-based company owned by Fenech. Caruana Galizia was the first to write about it in February 2017, albeit in a very cryptic way. However, 17 Black's ownership remained undisclosed by the time the journalist was assassi- nated in October 2017. It was only a year later that Times of Malta and Reuters re- vealed that Fenech owned the company, just a few months af- ter it was revealed that 17 Black was a target client for the Pan- ama companies set up by Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. These details that emerged after Caruana Galizia's assassination had cast the murder in a differ- ent light. The Electrogas leak provides another crucial piece of context. Internal emails and documents from Electrogas servers began reaching Daphne Caruana Gal- izia from a whistleblower in early 2017 and continued after her death. Her son Matthew testified that they were work- ing through hundreds, possi- bly thousands, of documents, while Andrew Caruana Galizia described the leak as her major unfinished investigation. For the prosecution, this devel- opment places Fenech squarely within the subject matter of Daphne's final investigation—he was an Electrogas shareholder and the frontman for the pro- ject, the owner of 17 Black and a person harbouring very intimate links to senior government fig- ures. But for Fenech, 17 Black was simply another company he owned. Asked by the prosecution, who owned 17 Black, Fenech replied: "I do, and it has nothing to do with Electrogas." He said he had opened the company in the United Arab Emirates to conduct business in Asia. "It wasn't a secret compa- ny; I was its sole owner." The reality is that the own- ership of the company was not readily apparent from ordinary public company records, and it was investigative reporting that established that Yorgen Fenech was its owner. Its relevance also grew because it was indicated a target client of Panama compa- nies owned by the then energy minister and Muscat's chief of staff. Fenech acknowledged that Caruana Galizia was the first to write about 17 Black but dis- missed allegations of illicit deal- ings as "insinuations", insisting "that was not the case". The same position emerged when he was questioned about Konrad Mizzi. Confronted with messages in which Miz- zi instructed him to delete WhatsApp messages, Fenech rejected the suggestion that Mizzi was worried. Asked whether he knew Miz- zi and Schembri had registered their respective companies, Hearnville and Tillgate in Pan- ama, Fenech said he learned about both from the media. "With all due respect, I had no commercial relationships with Mizzi and Schembri," he replied from the witness stand. When the prosecution sug- gested that his relationship with Mizzi and the Electrogas project pointed to something improper, Fenech said he was "shocked" that the Attorney General's Of- fice was questioning him about Electrogas. Asked whether he had panicked over the Electro- gas leak, he said he "didn't lose any sleep over it". On this point, Fenech and Schembri are strikingly aligned. JAMES DEBONO jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt YORGEN FENECH TRIAL TUESDAY • 26 AUGUST 2026 | maltatoday The lion, the mosquito and The prosecution in Yorgen Fenech's trial puts 17 Black, Electrogas and the Muscat-era nexus of politics and big business at the heart of the murder case. Yet, while accusing Keith Schembri of masterminding Daphne Caruana Galizia's killing, the accused largely defends the system she was investigating Left to right: Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri (Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday)