Yorgen Fenech will on Tuesday be taken from prison to parliament in an armoured American SUV to testify on the Electrogas power station contract before the Public Accounts Committee.
A high-security operation has been drawn up, including exit strategies in case of an emergency.
Prison officers visited the parliament building over the last few days and drafted the plan to ensure security in and around parliament.
It will be the first time Fenech will be seen outside court or prison since his arrest in connection with the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in November 2019.
The Public Accounts Committee hearing is expected to start at 2pm.
Top Corradino sources told Times of Malta that prison officials are fairly accustomed to such operations because they transport inmates to court regularly. This time, however, they will have to work within a new building and devise a security strategy specifically for the hearing.
Most details of the plan are classified for security reasons. The high-security SUV Fenech will be transported in was delivered to Malta’s prison service in 2020 at a cost of €120,000.
It is frequently used to transport inmates to and from court hearings but this will be the first time that it will take a prisoner to a hearing in parliament.
The vehicle has thick doors fitted with ballistic protection, tinted, multi-layered, bullet-proof windows and a system which allows it to keep running on flat tyres in case of an attack.
It also has a protected fuel tank and reinforced floors and body panels designed to resist high-velocity strikes.
It is also equipped with a bull bar, siren and beacon lights.
Yorgen Fenech will be taken to parliament in an armoured SUV.Little is known about the route the prison vehicles will take to parliament or which entrance will be used, but heavy security is expected inside the committee room and the adjacent rooms and outside parliament’s entrances.
Reporters will be allowed to attend the hearing but photographers, camera persons and the public will be barred from the building for security reasons.
The hearing will, however, be broadcast live on parliament’s television station and online.
Fenech was asked to testify before the PAC because he led the Electrogas consortium that was controversially awarded the right to build a power station in Delimara. Caruana Galizia was investigating the contract – and suspected corruption linked to it – when she was killed in 2017.
The PAC is examining a National Audit Office report on the power station deal.