Watch: Joseph Muscat Says He And His Old Friend Keith Schembri Have ‘Parted Ways’
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that he and his former chief of staff and close friend Keith Schembri have “parted ways in many ways”.
In an interview with Lovin Malta, Muscat was asked when he had last spoken to Schembri and he said it was “quite some time ago”.
“I’m in touch with him as I’m in touch with other people [but] I cannot say that I meet him regularly,” he said.
“I haven’t seen him for quite some time but this is not a way of disowning someone. We have parted ways in many ways. He has his priorities and I have my priorities.”
Muscat shared a close bond with Schembri throughout his six-year tenure as Prime Minister, praising him as a “doer and a mover” and even sticking by him when he was implicated in the Panama Papers scandal. In 2017, Schembri described Muscat as his “best friend”.
However, Muscat was forced to resign as Prime Minister when Schembri was arrested in 2019 after being implicated by Yorgen Fenech in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Schembri hasn’t been charged over the murder but he was recently charged with theft and misappropriation of public funds over a phantom job that was granted to the murder middleman Melvin Theuma shortly after he arranged the price to kill Caruana Galizia.
Questioned about this case, Muscat insisted he had no knowledge of the fake job and suggested more details could come out in court.
“I will wait until the proceedings come to an end. I’m not too sure that the whole story has been told on that issue,” he said.
Keith Schembri (left) with Melvin Theuma at Castille
The former PM added there are “conditions” attached to the presidential pardon that was granted to Theuma in 2019 to testify about the murder.
“There are conditions to that pardon, so I will wait for that,” he said, of a pardon that has never been published.
Questioned whether he still hopes that Schembri was “on the side of the state”, as he had recently said in a Wondery podcast, Muscat responded, “of course”.
“If I had to believe otherwise, I would be grossly disappointed. I hope he was on the side of the state,” he said.
What do you think of the interview?
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