Murder, corruption, police inaction and the downfall of a government all appeared to intersect in a court case implicating top officials and business figures that kicked off last week. 

Many of the facts leading to the prosecution of former officials Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, along with murder suspect Yorgen Fenech and his business associates Paul Apap Bologna and Mario Pullicino have long been known. 

Investigators found a complex web of transactions running into the millions between companies owned or controlled by the defendants, which also included alleged “professional money launderer” Brian Tonna, the director of audit firm Nexia BT and his associate Karl Cini. 

All the defendants deny wrongdoing. 

The prosecution was triggered by a 2018 magisterial inquiry kick-started by the police on the back of a Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit report naming Fenech as the owner of a mystery company called 17 Black. 

A leaked e-mail authored by Cini linked 17 Black to once-secret Panama companies set up by Nexia BT for Schembri and Mizzi while still in government. 

The use of secretive offshore structures, which took the inquiry close to seven years to penetrate, was a common trait among the defendants. 

Apap Bologna owned one called Kittiwake.

Like Fenech’s 17 Black, Kittiwake was based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country often berated by the international community for its lack of cooperation and disclosure of company ownership information in financial crime investigations. 

Pullicino was found to own EN3 Projects, yet another company based in the UAE. 

Another common denominator between the defendants was the Labour government’s flagship project in 2013 to build a new gas-fired power plant. 

“We will do our bit if you do yours” Apap Bologna allegedly told the Nationalist Party – then in government – during a rejected May 2009 pitch for the same project. 

A consortium known as Electrogas, formed between Apap Bologna, Fenech, the Gasan family, Azerbaijani oil giants Socar and German giants Siemens would go on to win the 2013 bid for the €450 million project. 

The Gasans and Siemens are not facing prosecution. 

That same year, Nexia BT took ownership of three companies called Hearnville, Tillgate and Egrant using the services of a small Panama law firm called Mossack Fonseca. 

Tonna was also appointed to one of the committees that selected Electrogas as the preferred bidder for the power station project. He was appointed upon the “recommendation” of then energy minister Konrad Mizzi. 

Financing for the €450 million project was secured by Electrogas in July 2015. Just one month prior to the financials stars aligning for the project, Mizzi secretly took over ownership of the Panama company Hearnville. 

Tillgate too would find a home with Schembri, ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff. 

Allegations that the third company Egrant was owned by Muscat’s wife Michelle were found by a separate magisterial inquiry to be untrue.

That same inquiry however questioned the real intent behind the setting up of Egrant. 

Key evidence 

One of the key pieces of evidence linking Mizzi’s and Fenech’s Panama companies to 17 Black was an e-mail published by Times of Malta in April 2018. 

The e-mail, written by Cini, detailed to a foreign bank where the money flowing to Mizzi’s and Schembri’s Panama companies would come from. 

17 Black was listed as a “target client.” 

The other “target client” was Macbridge, a Hong Kong company linked to Chen Cheng, another key figure in a separate energy deal overseen by Mizzi. 

These two target clients would help Mizzi’s and Schembri’s Panama companies generate “around $2 million with a year”, Cini said in the e-mail. 

Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, allegedly murdered upon Fenech’s orders in October 2017, was the first to out the former government officials’ ownership of these secretive offshore companies in February 2016.

Fenech, who was released on bail last week after five years in preventative custody, denies any involvement in the murder. 

The full details about the Panama companies emerged weeks later as part of a global journalism investigated based on a data leak from Mossack Fonseca known as the Panama Papers. 

Fenech was revealed to be the owner of 17 Black in 2018 following a joint investigation by Times of Malta and Reuters. 

Times of Malta also reported on a money trail leading from a Maltese company called Orion Engineering to 17 Black. Orion’s owner, Mario Pullicino, was the agent for the offshore storage unit supplying LNG to the Electrogas plant. 

The two-year period between the February 2016 revelations and the eventual kick-starting of the 17 Black inquiry in September 2018 appears to have been a dangerous vacuum of police inaction. 

A public inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s assassination found that the police “did hardly anything” to investigate media reports and that there was “direct and suspicious interference” by Schembri into police investigations. 

The government recently announced plans to make it harder for ordinary citizens to request a magisterial inquiry into corruption and other wrongdoing based on media reports. 

Schembri, Mizzi and Muscat only resigned from their positions following Fenech’s arrest in November 2019 over the Caruana Galizia murder investigation. 

Apap Bologna resigned from the Electrogas board in 2021 after Times of Malta exposed his ownership of Kittiwake. 

Prime Minister Robert Abela wrote to Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà in March 2021 calling for an investigation into a separate expose by Times of Malta and Reuters about Macbridge and another Hong Kong company that received a €1 million payment from 17 Black. 

Investigators also mentioned payments made by 17 Black to Cifidex, the company that sold shares in a Montenegro wind farm to Enemalta for triple their original price. 

Times of Malta and Reuters exposed in 2020 how Cifidex, owned by Turab Musayev, Socar’s former representative on the Electrogas board, shared profits from the wind farm deal with 17 Black. 

At the time, police said they had already started investigating the wind farm deal “in collaboration with Europol.” 

A magisterial inquiry into the deal is being led by Ian Farrugia.