Paul Caruana Galizia: My Father Was Offered Tumas Board Role
Paul Caruana Galizia has said his father was offered a position on the Tumas Group board shortly before its then head Yorgen Fenech was arrested on suspicion of ordering the journalist’s murder.
This detail emerged in ‘A Death in Malta’, a new book penned by Paul Caruana Galizia about his mother’s murder and its impact on his family and the nation.
In it, he recounted a conversation he had with his father as he accompanied him to the Malta Airport’s departures area ahead of Paul’s flight back to London.
“As we walked into the airport’s departures area, he talked about his work in Valletta and how supportive some people he met there were, some surprised him. ‘I bumped into Ray Fenech of the Tumas Group a few days ago,’ he told me. ‘He said, “Someone like you, I need on our board.””
UK publication day. Never thought it would come. pic.twitter.com/V6L86zCqRR
— Paul Caruana Galizia (@pcaruanagalizia) October 26, 2023
“The exchange angered me. Fenech’s ownership of 17 Black, the shell company set up to funnel money to Mizzi’s and Schembri’s Panama companies, had been exposed. His uncle knew, like everyone else in Malta did, that my mother had been investigating 17 Black.”
“His approach to my father seemed to me like an attempt to launder his reputation. I was even angrier that my father couldn’t seem to recognise this.”
“He kept saying, ‘It might not be what you think.’ He’d represented clients who’d dealt with Ray Fenech and had had meetings with him at Portomaso himself, so there was some basis for the approach. It made me think how in Malta, people are so close that they have to compartmentalise one another to extreme degrees.”
“In any case, I had little right to feel angry. My father lived there, unlike Andrew and me, and living there required constant moral and ethical compromise. Andrew had once said that enough time in Malta would leave you ‘deformed’.”
A Death In Malta is published by Cornerstone and has received several positive reviews, including this one in The Guardian by renowned English journalist John Simpson, who described Caruana Galizia’s book as “unforgettable, beautifully written, and deeply honest”.
Cover photo: Left: Ray Fenech, Right: Peter and Paul Caruana Galizia at a protest in Valletta
Have you read A Death in Malta yet?
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