A court order forbidding Yorgen Fenech from being within 50 metres of the coastline will not apply when he is signing a bail book at the St Julian’s police station.

Judge Edwina Grima issued a brief decree on Friday afternoon to clarify that point, after questions about the distance requirement were raised on social media.

The St Julian’s police station is located at Spinola Bay, close to the seashore. According to measurements on Google Maps, it is roughly 45 metres away from the shore.

The red line denotes the distance between the police station and shore. Photo: Google Maps

Momentum chairperson Arnold Cassola was among the first to allude to the matter.

“Is the law drawn up by parliament an ass?” he asked in a post that included a photo of Spinola.

In a clarification seen by Times of Malta, the court said it wished to “specify and clarify” that the 50-metre limit “does not apply to the accused’s requirement to report at the St Julian’s police station... when he signs [a bail book] and when he leaves.”

Fenech, a scion of the Fenech family and heir to the Tumas Group empire, was granted bail at a hearing earlier on Friday. He will only be allowed out of Corradino prison – where he has been held since he was arraigned in December 2019 – once the court confirms that his aunt has provisionally transferred her 15.5% share of the family business to the government as collateral.

Apart from that financial requirement, Fenech will be barred from approaching the coast or airport, required to stay indoors between 5pm and 11am and have a police officer posted outside his residence night and day as protection, among other court orders.  

Fenech stands accused of complicity in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed using a car bomb in 2017. He denies all charges.

Three men who admitted to placing and detonating the bomb were sentenced in 2021 and 2022.