The former chief of staff at the prime minister’s office, Keith Schembri, has dropped a libel suit against The Malta Independent over a story alleging that €750,000 had been transferred into his BVI (British Virgin Islands) company in 2014. 

A court heard on Monday that Mr Schembri had personally signed a waiver of the libel suit four days after his lawyer renounced the brief.

This had not been communicated to the newspaper’s lawyer, Peter Fenech, who only got to know that the libel had been dropped when he turned up for the pre-scheduled hearing on Monday. 

The story “Three quarters of a million transferred into PM’s Chief of Staff BVI company in 2014” was published on September 15, 2016. 

At the last hearing, on December 2,  Mr Schembri had not turned up in court but his lawyer, Andrew Sciberras, appeared and formally declared that he was renouncing the brief. 

Almost two months later, the respondents got to know that Mr Schembri had personally signed a formal note to waive his suit, “without reservation,” Magistrate Victor George Axiak said as he formally closed the court case. 

Mr Schembri resigned in November from his government position, and later, from the party, over the fall out from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation.