German prosecutors suggested Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder could have been linked to the Panama Papers leak in an email to the then attorney general shortly after the assassination.

Peter Grech revealed in his testimony on Friday to the public inquiry into her murder that he had received the information shortly after the October 2017 assassination. 

He said the email from the German prosecutor’s office said that the crime could possibly have been linked to the Panama Papers leak and that German authorities were willing to co-operate on that score.

Grech told the inquiry on Friday that he had passed on that information to the then-inquiring magistrate Anthony Vella. He said that another magistrate had travelled to Germany to check out that information as part of the Egrant inquiry.

Caruana Galizia was the first journalist to break the news that OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and former Energy minister Konrad Mizzi both had secret companies in Panama. 

The global Panama Papers leak in April 2016 confirmed her story and detailed the names of the companies Hearnville and Tillgate. It later emerged that another company, 17 Black, revealed to be owned by businessman Yorgen Fenech was due to make payments to the companies owned by Schembri and Mizzi. 

Fenech stands accused of conspiring to murder Caruana Galizia and denies the charges.