Opposition leader Adrian Delia has accused Keith Schembri of perjury after the former OPM chief of staff testified that murder suspect Yorgen Fenech had paid the PN leader €50,000 to derail MEP David Casa’s re-election campaign.

“I absolutely and categorically deny all these allegations and I have already filed an affidavit in this regard,” Delia said in a statement.

“I won’t comment further at this stage because I don’t want to prejudice court proceedings which are trying to establish who was behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Neither do I want to allow anyone to deviate attention from the true intention of these court proceedings.”

Delia said that Schembri is resorting to perjury because he and people close to him have been implicated in the assassination of Caruana Galizia.

“This is another attempt to stop me fulfilling my functions of ensuring that all those who misuse their high-ranking positions answer for their actions in court.”

Today, Schembri said under oath that with “100% certainty” Delia took the €50,000 while former PN Head of Media Pierre Portelli would meet with Fenech once a month to collect €20,000.

Schembri is the third person to allege Fenech had offered or agreed upon a dirty deal with the PN to prevent Casa’s re-election to the European Parliament last year.

Former PN radio host and current MP David Thake was the first to bring up these allegations, during a Xarabank show back in June 2019, a month after the European Parliament election.

Back then, Thake had asked Delia to respond to an allegation that Fenech had offered the party €50,000 to prevent Casa’s re-election to the European Parliament.

Delia said he had no information in this regard and urged Thake to forward any information he might have to the police, while Fenech described the allegation as a “blatant lie” and “a cowardly and dishonest attempt to tarnish my reputation and good standing”.

Five months later, Fenech was arrested and charged with conspiring to assassinate journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and his friend Melvin Theuma was given a presidential pardon to reveal everything he knows about the case.

In court last week, Theuma recounted how Fenech had told him he had offered the PN a sum of money to see that Casa was not re-elected because the MEP was hounding him over his ownership of his company 17 Black.

That same evening, Labour TV host Karl Stagno Navarra alleged that Fenech had paid Delia €50,000 personally, with a further €200,000 on offer if Casa wasn’t elected.

Delia and the Nationalist Party have both denied these allegations, as has Pierre Portelli, who was named for the first time by Schembri today.