Schembri expected to miss forthcoming court sittings due to treatment for tumour

Keith Schembri will be unable to make court sittings due to topical chemotherapy treatment to treat his tumour

Keith Schembri makes his way to the law courts to testify in the compilation of evidence against Yorgen Fenech
Keith Schembri makes his way to the law courts to testify in the compilation of evidence against Yorgen Fenech

Keith Schembri, the former Prime Minister’s chief of staff who is facing money laundering and corruption charges, can be expected to be excused on his forthcoming court sessions due to his treatment for an aggressive brain tumour

Schembri will undergo topical chemotherapy treatment to treat his tumour, MaltaToday is informed.

Schembri had already faced major health concerns for a cancerous tumour in his eye throughout 2016. 

At the height of Schembri’s most profound life challenge – an eye tumour which required him to seek treatment overseas – it was childhood friend and Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech, the man accused of masterminding the Caruana Galizia murder, whom Schembri found by his side, both in terms of moral support as well as financial support.

It was Fenech who footed part of the bill for Schembri at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in 2016, this newspaper has learnt; and it was Fenech who stayed by Schembri’s side during part of this stay. Fenech paid two bills for Schembri’s health costs: one costing €10,000, the other €14,000, sources close to the Fenech family said.

Since his arrest, Yorgen Fenech has claimed with police that Keith Schembri was part of the plot to kill Caruana Galizia: he had first told police that former minister Chris Cardona was the mastermind, and then also accused Keith Schembri, the chief of staff to former PM Joseph Muscat, of being part of the plot. Fenech also claimed that Joseph Muscat was aware that murder middleman Melvin Theuma had been “blabbing” about his mobile phone recordings.

Schembri health and Caruana Galizia

Keith Schembri’s health became a bone of contention in 2016 when Caruana Galizia then wrote that he had contracted a “fatal illness” as early as 2015. She had revealed how Schembri had stayed at Casa di Cura Mater Dei, a private hospital in Rome’s Parioli neighbourhood between 22-24 April 2016. This was around the time that the Panama Papers had revealed Schembri to have a secret offshore company. 

Caruana Galizia published numerous articles at this stage on the subject of Panama and Schembri’s inoperable eye tumour and how the chief-of-staff “has only been given some months left to live.” 

These stories irked Schembri to the point that he talked about them at length during testimonies he made during the Egrant inquiry. Schembri had told magistrate Aaron Bugeja that Caruana Galizia “crossed the limit” when she wrote about his health problems. 

“It can be on the record or off the record. You’re asking me about this article writer, I think this person has caused a lot of harm to my personal life and my family life,” Schembri had told the magistrate. 

“Everyone knows that I have health problems, and she invented a condition, made my family crazy. I was going to America for treatment and she provided my date of death without even… I am living proof of her lies, you see. I don’t think it’s right, as in the data protection commissioner forced her to delete the claim that I have an inoperable eye tumour from her site or pay €2,500 and €250 a day… and the article is still online, you see. 

“It’s not because I want to squabble, I don’t mind, but she has crossed the limit. At the worst time of my life, it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind… I was at a clinic in America, going for a PET scan, I had to wait for half an hour and I saw a comment, ‘make cancer bring him down’. I have no respect… I don’t know how to hate but I have no respect for people like that and I think I am currently responding to a frame-up. 

“She’s been lying about me for weeks, a year, a year and a half and I promised myself that I wasn’t going to sue her for libel. However, last week I opened two libel suits against her. It can’t go on like this... When your 13-year-old daughter approaches you and says, ‘Daddy, they said you’re going die at school’ and you don’t know how to respond… I feel hurt that I am here today responding to these allegations.”