AFM patrol boats intercepted Yorgen Fenech’s yacht leaving the Portomaso Marina at 5am, less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced that he recommended a pardon for the middleman in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Witnesses told Lovin Malta that the yacht, ‘Gio’, left the Portomaso marina unperturbed at roughly 5:30am. However, according to vessel-tracking sites, Gio was stopped by AFM patrol vessels in waters outside of Pembroke at 5:45 am.

After lying stationary while officers boarded the yacht, AFM patrol vessels escorted Gio back towards Portomaso.

A rigorous search by AFM continues at the marina.

AFM officers on-site declined Lovin Malta’s entry onto the site.

The incident comes just under 24 hours from when a middleman, believed to be Melvin Theuma, said he would spill the beans on the masterminds behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The Times of Malta has previously reported that a “major businessman” was the main suspect in the masterminding the murder.

Fenech is the owner of 17 Black, the Dubai-based company that was allegedly set up to transfer millions to the Panamanian companies owned by former energy minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.

He is also the director of Electrogas, the firm which operates Malta’s new gas-fired power station. The power station was a critical electoral pledge in Labour’s campaign to take government in 2013 and was under Konrad Mizzi’s remit back when he was Energy Minister.

The power station is owned by a consortium called Electrogas which includes local business groups Tumas Group, Gasan Group and CP Holdings. The foreign shareholders are Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, and the German company Siemens.

Meanwhile, Alfred Degiorgio, one of the men accused of carrying out the horrific murder, gambled close to €457,000 at one of Fenech’s casinos despite being legally unemployed, walking away with €441,000.

After two years of waiting on endless questions surrounding Daphne’s death, the public might soon be getting answers.