Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia on Monday said that his last meeting with Yorgen Fenech dated back to before the business tycoon was exposed as the owner of secret Dubai company 17 Black. 

Delia was named in court testimony on Monday as having reportedly lunched with Fenech at the latter’s Żebbuġ farmhouse. No date for this alleged meeting was given.

The testimony, by Melvin Theuma, was given as part of the compilation of evidence against Fenech, who stands accused of complicity in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

Theuma recalled Fenech telling him that Delia had asked whether it was OK if he turned up for lunch wearing shorts. He told the court that he did not know if Fenech was telling the truth or just bragging about his contacts. 

In a brief statement, Delia said that he wanted to declare “in the most absolute and categorical manner that I have never met Yorgen Fenech after news emerged that he was involved in the company 17 Black.” 

In November 2018, Times of Malta had revealed that Fenech was the owner of 17 Black, a company which had been named as the source of funds for secret companies owned by former minister Konrad Mizzi and former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Eight months before her October 2017 murder, Caruana Galizia began writing about the existence of 17 Black. 

Yorgen Fenech lights a cigarette as he exits court in November 2019. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

Delia said that what he had told Lovin Malta in April 2019 still applied. At the time, Delia had denied having any business or professional relationship with Fenech or his companies and insisted his track record in fighting corruption spoke for itself.

“No amount of meetings, encounters, advertisements or whatever else one may consider as being an association of sorts , should ever be construed to indicate even remotely the possibility to dampen my fight against any kind of corruption,” he had said.