VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech told police he personally gave Melvin Theuma, the middleman between Fenech and the men who carried out the assassination, the “OK” to proceed with a plot to murder Daphne Caruana Galizia — then claimed he tried to call it off three days later.
The extraordinary admission is contained in Fenech’s 2019 police interrogation and is being published today by the Sunday Times of Malta for the first time following Wednesday’s verdict acquitting him of complicity in Caruana Galizia’s murder and criminal association.
“First, I told him OK. After three days, I told him to stop,” Fenech told investigators. He claimed the initial green light came after Keith Schembri, then chief of staff to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, allegedly told him to proceed. But Fenech said the operation was already under way when he changed his mind. Theuma had allegedly paid €30,000 to people Fenech described as “killers” and “the worst people in Malta”.
Fenech said he subsequently handed Theuma €50,000 from his office safe to reimburse him. “If you paid €30,000, take €50,000. I don’t want you to be out of pocket. I don’t want anything to do with this,” he recalled telling Theuma. Fenech said the assassination had initially been priced at €120,000, insisting investigators were wrong when they put the figure at €150,000. “It was €120,000 not €150,000. They went up to €150,000 after,” he said.
Yet when directly questioned about whether he had paid the €120,000, Fenech declined to answer, repeatedly telling investigators he would provide details “at the opportune time”. He also admitted passing money to Theuma for expenses linked to the men who were later convicted of Caruana Galizia’s murder.
Fenech said he continued paying Theuma after the murder because he feared him and wanted to protect himself and Schembri. “I kept giving him money, because I was scared of him,” he said. He claimed Theuma had threatened him with recordings and that he would have “problems” if the middleman began speaking. Fenech also alleged that Schembri had been hinting about getting rid of Caruana Galizia since 2014, becoming more direct in 2016. “He told me find someone to get rid of her,” Fenech claimed. Schembri has denied any involvement in the murder.
Fenech further accused Schembri of giving him a “script” for his earlier accounts of the assassination and promising him a pardon. “I felt it was my duty to protect Keith Schembri,” he told police. He said one earlier version, which implicated former minister Chris Cardona, was based on that alleged script. Fenech also named Joseph Muscat, Adrian Vella and Johann Cremona as people who, he claimed, eventually learned that Schembri was behind the murder. Muscat has denied discussing Caruana Galizia’s murder with Fenech.
The interrogation recordings provide a previously unpublished account of Fenech’s own description to police of the alleged assassination plot — including his admission that he personally gave Theuma the initial green light.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
