Yorgen Fenech Planned To Cash In On Local Assets And Relocate To The United States
Yorgen Fenech was planning to sell his assets in Malta and relocate to the United States of America in the months before he was arrested.
In court, lead investigator Keith Arnaud revealed that WhatsApp messages in 2019 show Fenech confirming his intention to leave the family business and relocate to the United States, asking his mother, Patricia, whether she would be willing to join him in the US for some time.
“Remain in Malta as a base and do something away from our shores. If you leave, I will leave too. I have some millions,” Patricia Fenech told her son.
The revelations were made during a sitting in Constitutional proceedings filed by Fenech arguing that the courts’ repeated refusal to grant him bail was arbitrary and unconstitutional.
It would appear that the possibility was being actively explored by Fenech, who had even identified a number of potential homes for his family and himself.
Caruana Galizia family lawyer Therese Comodini Cachia told the court that Fenech had even commissioned a report on schools in the area for him to send his children once they moved, it was revealed in court.
Sources have suggested that the plan was for Fenech and members of his family to the Tumas Group and sell off assets here in Malta for some €30 million.
In a statement uploaded to Simon Mercieca’s blog this morning, Patricia Fenech rubbished arguments brought forward by the Attorney General about how Yorgen Fenech was a flight risk and should therefore be denied bail.
“There is always the same absurd reason given, that he will escape – to go where completely on his own?” Fenech wrote.
“And doesn’t it stand to reason that anyone given bail can escape – that anyone can have the means to fund an escape and that anyone can find a way to make it? Is it only him that can do this – in reality, due to the media attention given to his case, he is probably the least person who can do it. It is thus that when you think rationally and coolly about the reasons given against granting bail you see that they do not hold water.”
The businessman has been indicted for his role in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Prosecutors have requested life imprisonment for Fenech for his alleged role in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and a prison sentence of between 20 and 30 years for alleged criminal conspiracy. He denies both charges.
On Wednesday, Fenech had yet another bail request denied by the Criminal Court.
Judge Giovanni Grixti, who decided on this latest request, noted that there existed a very real fear that Fenech would escape the country or commit another offence if he was released from prison.
Grixti was also revealed to have purchased a boat from Fenech’s father back in 2008.
The sale was confirmed by Fenech in her statement, in which she questioned how information about the sale had been unearthed, while also insisting that there was nothing wrong with two individuals entering into an agreement to sell a boat.
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