Police Commissioner Laurence Cutajar has turned down Yorgen Fenech’s request to remove chief homicide inspector Keith Arnaud from the investigation into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia on the grounds of his alleged close ties with Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff whom Fenech is now implicating.

“It has resulted that there is no grounds upon which to remove Inspector Keith Arnaud from this investigation,” the police said in a statement, citing progress that has been made on the case so far.

“Inspector Arnaud has been leading this investigation from the start, with the assistance of Europol, who remain actively involved in the investigation.”

In a letter to Cutajar, Fenech’s lawyer had accused Arnaud of having kept Schembri continuously informed of updates into the investigation. Fenech said that when he was arrested on 20th November, Arnaud told him to “be responsible” in his words. He also claimed that Schembri had helped Arnaud’s wife land a job as a clerical officer at Infrastructure Malta on 14th January 2019.

Infrastructure Malta later issued a statement to insist that there was nothing irregular about this procedure. The national roads agency said that Arnaud’s wife was one of two people who had applied for the vacant role and that she was the only candidate who accepted their offer to work with them.