‘I Had No Involvement. Zero’: Fenech Takes The Stand And Denies Ordering Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Murder

Yorgen Fenech, the man accused of murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia, took the stand as the defence opened its case in the trial against the businessman. He told jurors he had no part in ordering the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Still, he admitted handing €50,000 to the middleman who arranged her murder and later passing him police information he says came from Keith Schembri.

“I’m 44. I work in the family business. I have a wife and two kids. I was raised in a traditional family with my brother and my parents,” Fenech opened. 

Fenech explained that he entered the family business under his uncle Ray’s wing. He then took over the group’s gaming division. When his father died in 2014, he took a step up.

The questioning quickly turned to Keith Schembri.

“The first time I met Keith, I was 9 or 10. He was seven years older than me. He lived close to us in Santa Lucija. When I started going to Paceville, I would meet Keith at the same place my brother and I went. He was closer to my brother,” Fenech said.

In 2008, when Joseph Muscat became the Opposition Leader, Fenech, along with Yorgen, was invited to a business leaders’ lunch. “I recognised Keith when I arrived, and we got talking. After that lunch, he asked to start introducing Muscat to the business community.”

From there, their friendship grew. They met regularly, both alone, with other friends, and with their families. “We were good friends,” he said.

In 2012, Fenech said, his father was diagnosed with cancer – and died in 2014. During that period, he grew closer to Schembri. “He helped me a lot. He would come for me almost every day. He was a shoulder to cry on. He would give me advice and support,” he said. “He was like my brother.”

“He was young, self-made, successful. He was a political operator. At the same time, he was very happy-go-lucky, nice to everyone. I admired him. I looked up to him,: Fenech added.

In 2013, the year the Labour Party was elected to government, Fenech said he was approached to join a consortium for the gas-to-energy power plant, which would later become Electrogas. “I took over the project,” he said.

The questioning moved to 2016 and Keith Schembri’s cancer diagnosis. He said that he introduced Schembri to doctors and medical experts. “I had gone through it with my father, so I had good contacts; we ended up going to the Mayo Clinic in the USA with Dr Adrian Vella.” Fenech placed this trip around Donald Trump’s election win in November 2016.

De Marco then moved on to Fenech’s “ranch” in Haz-Zebbug. He described it as a “refuge” that he used to have lunches with family and friends, including Keith Schembri.

He said that upon their return from the USA, Schembri told Fenech to get a lamb dinner. Fenech said he contacted Melvin Theuma to provide the meat. He said he knew Theuma from Marsa, where Theuma worked as a bookmaker.

“Around 2011-12, I was in the office with Uncle Ray. Melvin came looking for him. He told me that he had got a taxi and wanted to see if he could operate from the Hilton,” he said. “After we extended the hotel, we brought him onto our roster.”

Returning to 2016, Fenech said that the dinner happened on a Thursday afternoon. It was a casual dinner, he said, with his uncle, cousins, and Keith Schembri. “I told Melvin he could join,” he added. 

“The discussion on the table was a Daphne blog post on Keith Schembri’s diagnosis. We spoke about it. Keith was emotional. The personal level of the attacks was bothering him,” Fenech said. 

“We ended up just myself, Keith and Melvin at the table. We started speaking about the blog again. Out of nowhere, Melvin said, “We can get rid of her quickly”. I didn’t pay much attention. I went for a cigarette, and they continued talking. This was around mid-November 2016.”

“A few weeks passed. Melvin was taking me to the airport. The second I got into the car, he told me that there was a plan to murder Daphne.  He told me they needed 120,000. I called Keith and asked him what they spoke about that evening. He told me, “Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead”. I felt heavy; I would never have thought I would be involved.”

“When he collected me on my return from the airport, he told me that he gave them €30,000 for the murder, and then we can sort it out. He said he went on my word, and he started going crazy. I panicked. I told him that we misunderstood one another, but to stop this now. I gave him €50,000 from my safe in my office. I gave him €50,000 so he could have an extra €20,000 to make sure he wasn’t put out by it…and that’s all I thought of it. I told Keith about it; he told me that I did the right thing – and that was that.”

In mid-February 2017, Fenech said Melvin Theuma called him and asked for a favour: to help him get through to the Customer Care Office in Castille. He said Theuma called a day or two later, asking how to enter the office. Fenech called Schembri to find him. “Melvin was over the moon because they gave him the job,” Fenech said. “He told me that he would never go.”

De Marco put Theuma’s timeline to Fenech, namely, how the plot began around mid-April, when the businessman ordered the assassination outside the Blue Elephant at the Hilton.

“I never ordered the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. I had no involvement. Zero,” he said. 

Fenech said that in April he was abroad in America for “almost one month.” The defence presented an image from a cruise trip they went on between 15th and 22nd April 2017, along with a visa stamp showing his arrival in America on 7th April 2017 and return on 2nd May through the UAE. 

“It makes no sense. He said I mentioned George ic-Ciniz. The first time I ever heard that name was when they arrested him on 4th December.”

“How did you enter this story?” De Marco asked.

“Until November 2017, I was not in the story. At the end of November, Keith Schembri came to me, agitated; he told me that he needed to pass a message on to Melvin. My heart sank. It had just happened. I had heard that discussion. Keith had an obsession with her. You need to speak to Melvin and tell him that the police are very close to catching the “clique” of the Potato Shed,” Fenech said. 

“It was the biggest mistake of my life, because I accepted that I would pass on the message,” he added. 

“When I told Melvin, he told me not to care. I relayed the message back to Keith. He told me no – that there is evidence of the message used to detonate the bomb, the bomb they were on, the burner phones…and how one of them topped up their phones. I went and passed the information to Melvin, including that they would be arrested on 4th December.”

“I did it out of a distorted sense of loyalty, to someone I thought was a friend,” Fenech said of Keith. “In my worst times, I always found him there.”

“I ended up in drug addiction. I spent years fighting it because of my brother – and I ended up there because I couldn’t handle it.”

“Then a diatribe of Melvin. I would find him near my office. Panicking. Tell me he would go to Castille, to there. It was an escalation. At the start, he was manageable, and then it went to a new level in April 2018 when Keith told me to inform him that one of the hitmen was speaking with Keith Arnaud. I told him. He was talking about betrayal. He told me that I betrayed him. Asking me why I got him into this. He got it into his head that Keith was betraying him, that I was part of it. I tried to convince him it wasn’t the case, and I would pass on information.”

Fenech went on to say that over this period, Schembri sent Kenneth Camilleri to “calm down” Melvin Theuma, and there was a discussion regarding a promise to bail out the DeGiorgio brothers. “I found out about this after, through Melvin, Keith and Johann (Johann Cremona).”

Cremona is a business partner of Fenech who rented a space from Theuma in Marsa. 

The questions turned to the tapes. “The situation was unbearable. It was so out of character that drugs became my escape. You try to numb yourself. The moment I was arrested, I felt I would be free to talk about the things bothering me.”

Fenech confirmed that he went to two rehabs to help curb his addiction. He said this was in 2019. He claimed that he would also purchase cocaine from Melvin Theuma. 

“My life was over. I wouldn’t go to work. I wouldn’t see my family,” he said, as he attempted to cry on the stand. “I didn’t have the tools to deal with these people”.

Questions then turned towards his involvement with ElectroGas. He defended the project and said he “remained quiet”. He said it was one of the most scrutinised deals in the country’s history. 

He confirmed that he was aware that Daphne had acquired a cache of leaks from ElectroGas. However, he insisted that he discovered this in December 2017. 

He said that 17 Black, his UAE company, had nothing to do with ElectroGas. He insisted that he opened it to set up business in that area. He insisted that it wasn’t a secret company. 

Fenech insisted that he never informed Melvin Theuma of his impending arrest, claiming that it came from Edwin Brincat. He claimed that Theuma was blackmailing him.

He said that one day, before he discovered he was being recorded, Theuma came to the office and asked for his favour and for €50,000 to help the Degiorgio brothers. Fenech said he refused, and Theuma complained. Later, Schembri told him to give him the money. He did.

He confirmed that on another occasion, Melvin asked for €60,000 to help with the bail request. He claimed he spoke to Keith Schembri, who sent him around €75,000 to €80,000  in a Reebok bag. 

Theuma’s letter, which named both Fenech and Schembri and included some of the recordings, was handed to Fenech around October 2018. 

“I was wrong to say Theuma threatened me. I wasn’t physically scared. From that day I was worried,” he said. “I told Keith. He came immediately. 

Next up was Dr Adrian Vella, the trip to Gozo, and the note he allegedly passed to Fenech, allegedly from Schembri.

He claimed that it was the Friday after Theuma’s arrest. Schembri called him up and said they needed to speak about it. Fenech said Vella recognised his drug problems, that he spoke to Keith and said it would be good to take a break in Gozo. 

“I knew what was going on from the moment Melvin was arrested,” he said.

Fenech claimed that Vella abandoned him at the residence in Gozo – and that he had given him medication to help with the stress. He said that Vella brought him a passport. 

He claimed that Vella suggested David Gatt as a lawyer, but told the court that he felt he should choose his own. He said he was on cocaine and felt paranoid, and called his brother to collect him. 

Fenech’s testimony ended there and will continue tomorrow.