Yorgen Fenech has been summoned to appear before parliament's Public Accounts Committee on May 23 to answer questions about the Electrogas power station deal.
If he is granted permission by the Corradino Correctional Facility, it will be the first time he will be seen outside court since his arrest in connection with the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia November 2019.
Fenech led the 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.
He has been called to testify before the PAC as it continues its examination of a National Audit Office report concerning the power station deal awarded to the Electrogas consortium.
The probe began in the previous legislature and has seen high-profile witnesses like former minister Konrad Mizzi, former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and former Nexia BT boss Brian Tonna testify.
Fenech's uncle, Tumas Group magnate Ray Fenech, also appeared before the committee last January - and suggested committee members summon his nephew to testify, prompting the committee members to summon him to appear before them so he could answer their questions.
“His name (Fenech) was mentioned several times during testimonies as a point of reference on the awarding of the contract during the procedures of this consortium (Electro Gas)”, PAC chairman Darren Carabott said as he proposed Fenech as the PAC's next witness. The four government members of the committee did not object to the proposal.
'I choose not to testify'
The PAC hearings have stumbled into many hurdles with several of its witnesses, including the testimony by former minister Konrad Mizzi, who refused to answer questions.
Tonna and the former director of Nexia BT Karl Cini had also refused to answer questions when they appeared before the PAC, invoking their right to silence so as not to incriminate themselves.
This prompted the request for a ruling from Speaker of the House Anġlu Farrugia who ruled in separate decisions that witnesses appearing before the PAC cannot invoke their right to silence at their whims but only if the questions are incriminating.
He said that witnesses can opt not to answer questions if they are facing criminal charges on the matter being discussed during committee proceedings or if they feel that they would be incriminating themselves by answering those questions.
In February, Cini steadfastly refused to answer any questions put to him by the committee, repeatedly saying throughout the 35-minute hearing that he would be exercising his right to silence.
Tonna had followed the same rulebook in 2021 when he refused to testify before the PAC, with his lawyer, Stephen Tonna Lowell, informing the committee at the start of proceedings that he had advised his client not to respond to any questions and invoke his right to silence. He told the committee that Tonna had been asked questions about the Electrogas deal by an inquiring magistrate and therefore he may be a suspect in ongoing investigations.
The then committee chairman, Opposition MP Beppe Fenech Adami, however, said he could not allow the witness to simply leave and questions would still be put to him.
Tonna proceeded to roll off the phrase “I choose not to reply” to a long series of questions being put to him, ranging from what his profession is and what his role in company Nexia BT is, to specifics of his involvement in the power station project.
One year after she was killed, Times of Malta revealed that an offshore company which Caruana Galizia first exposed was owned by Fenech. That company, 17 Black, was named as a "target client" of offshore firms owned by former minister Konrad Mizzi and Schembri.
Times of Malta later revealed that fellow Electrogas director Paul Apap Bologna owned an offshore structure identical to Fenech's.
Fenech's name has featured regularly during PAC hearings into the Electrogas contract, most recently when the committee's previous witness, Keith Schembri, testified.
Schembri insisted he never met Yorgen Fenech to discuss their bid for the project, save for a single meeting in which he (Schembri) acted as an observer.
Schembri’s testimony is currently suspended pending a constitutional court case.