Keith Schembri to be charged with breaching official secrets
Keith Schembri is set to be charged with perjury and breaching the Official Secrets Act after a five-year inquiry into leaks surrounding the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation. Sources revealed that the charges stem from claims by Yorgen Fenech, who is accused of complicity in the journalist’s murder, alleging that Schembri leaked information to him. Schembri never declared his “fraternal friendship” with Fenech, even after the businessman became a police suspect and had his phone tapped by security services. In a separate case, the court said that the “cowardly and disloyal” leaks continued to the extent that the men eventually convicted of carrying out the assassination had themselves been tipped off about their December 2017 arrest at a Marsa potato shed. (Times of Malta)
Lavrov to visit Malta for OSCE meeting
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to visit Malta next month for a high-level meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This will mark his first visit to an EU country since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The OSCE’s Council of Foreign Ministers is set to convene on December 5-6. Lavrov’s anticipated participation, as reported by Russian daily Vedomosti, is a rare instance of dialogue between Russian and EU officials amid tense relations due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. (Maltatoday)
Opposition Leader blames PM of choosing fraud in Bartolo case
Opposition Leader Bernard Grech accused Prime Minister Robert Abela of choosing corruption and “fraud” over the interests of the Maltese public, reiterating the PN’s demand for the immediate resignation of Ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri, or for Abela to dismiss them from their posts.Grech’s comments follow a damning report by the Standards Commissioner on Thursday, which found that Bartolo and Camilleri breached ethics and abused their power by appointing Bartolo’s then-girlfriend, now wife, Amanda Muscat, as a policy consultant in Camilleri’s Ministry—a role she was unqualified for and did not perform. The investigation was initiated following a request by independent politician Arnold Cassola in 2022, who alleged that Muscat, then Bartolo’s private secretary, was transferred to the Gozo Ministry without attending work. (The Malta Independent)
