Joseph Muscat ‘Will Not Engage’ On Claims He Was Gifted A €20,000 Bvlgari Watch By Yorgen Fenech
The Prime Minister’s office has released a statement today saying that he will not engage in responding to allegations that Yorgen Fenech gifted him a €20,000 limited edition Bvlgari watch for Christmas in 2014.
“The Prime Minister will not engage in answering partial, deeply manipulated information being selectively leaked to parts of the media,” the statement says, accusing an unnamed source of directing a “misleading and self-serving” narrative in what he has described as a “hideous assassination case”.
“The Prime Minister did his duty in this case despite the fact that he was threatened, as he himself reported, with a smear campaign.”
“The Prime Minister holds the right to take appropriate action at the right time, as well as answer with facts that will show the manipulation and the pure inventions being circulated right now and others being obviously concocted.”
“No amount of personal vendetta timed with vehement spite by someone will deviate from these facts.”
“Meanwhile, it must be noted that the Prime Minister has always followed all the codes and rules related to gifts he received.”
Yorgen Fenech, the former Tumas Group CEO and Electrogas shareholder, stands accused of complicity in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Muscat had denied any relationship with Fenech earlier in the year, but since then it has been revealed that he attended the wedding of Pilatus bank chairman Sayed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad with Fenech and his former Chief of Staff, Keith Schembri.
Today, activist group Repubblika revealed that they would be filing an official complaint with police regarding the matter.
The report, which was filed by Dr Jason Azzopardi on behalf of Maltese activist group Repubblika, comes after Lovin Malta revealed that Muscat had received a luxury Bvlgari watch from business magnate and murder suspect Yorgen Fenech as a gift.
It details how the gift was given during Christmas 2014, just weeks after the government had given an “unprecedented” €88 million state guarantee to cover a bank loan for Electrogas to build a new power station.
“The luxurious gift given by the main owner of Electrogas Ltd (Yorgen Fenech) in the period when the Leader of the Government was asked for the loan guarantee and from who he got the authorization for a bank guarantee of over €88 million (and that in 28th of May 2015 increased by another €22 million) amounts to a clear indication of a criminal act,” Azzopardi says in the filing.