Vincent Muscat has been given a presidential pardon in return for information about a lawyer’s murder at a Birkirkara garage complex six years ago.

Times of Malta reported that Muscat will be able to shed light on the murder of Carmel Chircop and that Cabinet approved his pardon request yesterday. 

Chircop was killed after he was shot four times while walking to a garage complex in John Borg Street, Birkirkara in October 2015. 

CCTV footage showed a light-coloured vehicle driving away from the crime scene. 

However, the crime remains unsolved. 

Chircop was a partner of the legal firm Dingli & Dingli and spent time as president of the Duke of Connaught Own band club in Birkirkara. 

Last year, MaltaToday reported that Chircop had in 2014 loaned €750,000 to Ryan Schembri, the owner of the now-defunct More Supermarkets who fled Malta with loan sharks reportedly chasing him.

Schembri is the cousin of former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and is still on the run till this day.

Adrian Agius, one of the suspected bomb makers in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder, had guaranteed the loan.

Earlier today, Muscat was sentenced to 15 years in jail for his role in the assassination of Caruana Galizia.

In a dramatic turn of events, the triggerman changed his plea to guilty in return for a reduced sentence and testimony in the case against George Degiorgio and Alfred Degiorgio, the two brothers who were also charged with carrying out the journalist’s murder. He will also likely testify in other cases linked to the information he’s providing police.

What do you make of this development?