Malta journalist murder: Businessman arrested on yacht over killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia

Police in Malta have arrested one of the country’s most prominent businessmen in connection with an investigation into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, according to sources.

Yorgen Fenech was detained after police intercepted his yacht off the Mediterranean island on Wednesday morning.

His arrest came a day after the government said it would offer a pardon to a suspected middleman in the October 2017 murder if he provided legally binding evidence of who masterminded the killing.

Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat confirmed Mr Fenech’s arrest but declined to say on what grounds he had been detained.

He said he instructed police to be on the lookout for unusual actions by “people of interest” in the murder. “If I had not given these instructions, maybe today we might be speaking of persons of interest who might have escaped,” Mr Muscat told reporters.

Mr Fenech is a director and co-owner of a business group that won a large energy concession from the Maltese state in 2013 to build a gas power station on the island.

He was also last year revealed to be the owner of a Dubai company, 17 Black, who Caruana Galizia had alleged was linked to Maltese politicians in blog post she wrote eight months before she was killed by a car bomb.

Police boarded Mr Fenech’s luxury yacht after it left Portomaso marina shortly before dawn on Wednesday. Maltese armed forces made the vessel to return to port.

A source close to the investigation told the Times of Malta a warrant for the businessman’s arrest was signed by a magistrate “in a rush in relation to the attempted escape”.

Authorities have not disclosed an alleged charge but will have 48 hours to question Mr Fenech.

Three other men were arrested in December 2017 and charged with murder. The suspects – brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vincent Muscat – have all denied detonating the car bomb which killed Caruana Galizia near Valletta.

The Maltese prime minister – who is not related to Vincent Muscat – this week signed a letter promising a pardon to an alleged middleman who claims to know who ordered the killing.

The alleged middleman, who was arrested last week in connection to a separate case, will be allowed to go free if his evidence “is sufficient to prosecute the mastermind of this crime”, said prime minister, whose political allies were named in stories published by Caruana Galizia on her widely read anti-corruption website.

Through her work on the Panama Papers leaks, Caruana Galizia was the first to break the news of the involvement of prominent Maltese politicians in the exploitation of offshore tax regimes.

One leaked emailed named 17 Black as a source of income for companies owned by then energy minister Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, who remains the prime minister’s chief of staff.

The email said their firms expected payments of up to £1.56m within a year from the Mr Fenech’s company, although it made no reference to the gas power station plans.

Mr Schembri and Mr Mizzi, who is now tourism minister, both told Reuters last October they had no knowledge of any connection between 17 Black and Mr Fenech, or of any plan to receive payments connected to the businessman or the energy project.

Mr Fenech denied making any plans to pay any politician or any person or entity connected to them.

The prime minister said on Tuesday there was no evidence so far that any politician was involved in Caruana Galizia’s murder. But the journalist’s family have accused the government of failing to properly investigate her death, and last year called for a public inquiry.

Responding to Mr Fenech’s arrest, Caruana Galizia’s son Paul said: “We got here in spite of Joseph Muscat. And there are politicians – in his cabinet – linked to the case.”

Simon Busuttil, an MP and former leader of Malta’s opposition party, said the businessman’s arrest made the prime minister’s position untenable. He tweeted: “He must resign now and let justice take its course.”