The government has refused a request by Yorgen Fenech for the presidential pardon granted to Melvin Theuma to be withdrawn.

The Cabinet of Ministers decided to recommend a refusal to the president after seeking advice from the Attorney General and the Poice Commissioner, the government said in a statement.

Fenech has been under arrest since November 2019 and is awaiting trial after having been accused of complicity in the car bomb murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in October 2017.

Theuma, the self-confessed middleman of the murder plot, was granted the pardon at the time of Fenech's arrest, on November 25, 2019, so that he could give information about the murder.

Fenech is alleged to have masterminded the murder and acted through Theuma to commission three men to carry it out. The three - brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio and Vince Muscat - are all serving prison terms after having admitted their involvement. 

Last February, Fenech lost a bid to have Theuma investigated by the police for alleged perjury. 

A magistrate ruled that at that stage there was no prima facie basis for the police commissioner to order such an investigation. 

Fenech’s lawyers had claimed testimony by Theuma during the murder inquiry as well as during the compilation of evidence was full of “half-truths” and “blatant lies”.