Enemalta was negotiating with 17 Black-linked Cifidex for a Montenegro wind farm deal well before it even owned shares in the project.

The Times of Malta has uncovered a set of Enemalta board minutes from January 2015 which detail how the state company had reached an agreement with Cifidex. At the time, the project was owned by Spanish consortium Fersa.

“Following discussions, both internal and with Cifidex (the present owners of the project, along with Fersa), the negotiations led to the verbal conclusions of the negotiations with Cifidex,” minutes from a meeting led by current Enemalta chairman and then- Kevin Chircop reads.

Cifidex signed a promise of sale agreement with Fersa for €2.9 million in February 2015 to buy 99% of the project’s shares. A Montenegrin company held the remaining 1%.

The sale was funded by 17 Black, the infamous Dubai-based company belonging to Yorgen Fenech, the Tumas Group business charged in connection to the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination.

The deal was completed in December 2015. Just two weeks later, Cifidex sold those shares to Enemalta for €10.3 million. Cifidex returned around €3 million to 17 Black and made an alleged €4.6 million in profit.

Chinese negotiator Chen Cheng, who first named by Daphne Caruana Galizia in the Panama Papers, appears to have been central in making the Montenegro wind farm project happen.

In a presentation to the Enemalta Board in 2014 in regards the Montenegro project, he named Cifidex as the sole agent for the project, even though the company was still a year away from purchasing the shares

Former Enemalta chairman and CEO Fredrick Azzopardi signed off on the deal. Azzopardi currently heads Infrastructure Malta, which regularly dishes out multi-million euro contracts.

“The report published by Times of Malta this morning can mean nothing less than that Frederick Azzopardi, then Chairman of Enemalta, was conscious of the corrupt deal between Yorgen Fenech and Turab Musayev on the one end, and Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi on the other. At the very least, he turned a blind eye. Why don’t you start talking, dear Frederick, instead of hiding behind daddy Ian?,” Matthew Caruana Galizia has said on a social media.

Cifidex, was once owned by Turab Musayev, a former ElectroGas director.  Musayev has denied any wrongdoing. He said Cifidex had its own independent management and that his business with Fenech involved due diligence from reputable and established bankers, accountants and lawyers.

Fenech’s 17 Black was also listed as the target clients for Tillgate and Hearnville, the two Panamanian companies owned by disgraced former Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and former minister Konrad Mizzi, by December 2015.

According to one e-mail found in the Panama Papers, Schembri and Mizzi were set to receive payments of up to $2 million from 17 Black.

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