Yorgen Fenech files his 16th bail request

The man indicted for complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Yorgen Fenech, has filed yet another request for bail - his 16th - and claimed to have served the longest time in preventive custody in Maltese judicial history.

Fenech’s lawyers, Gianluca Caruana Curran, Marion Camilleri and Charles Mercieca filed the bail application in the Criminal Court, once again insisting that their client, who has been in preventive custody since his arraignment in November 2019, would follow any conditions imposed by the court, including submitting to being electronically tagged and placed under house arrest in a property far from the coast,  as well as regularly signing a bail book and providing financial guarantees. 

The lawyers argued that the five years Fenech had so far spent in preventive custody were equivalent to a jail term, and was the longest time an accused person had ever spent remanded in custody in Malta.

Stressing Fenech’s clean criminal record and that his behaviour while in custody had demonstrated his trustworthiness and obedience.

All of Fenech’s previous bail requests have been refused, his recent one being rejected in August 2023 as the court felt there was a credible flight risk and of a risk of him tampering with evidence. The Court of Criminal Appeal had ruled at the time that the reasons for which the Attorney General was objecting to bail had not changed, and that none of the guarantees offered by Fenech effectively mitigated the risk of him absconding. 

A Constitutional case filed by Fenech, in which he claimed that the repeated refusals to grant him bail constituted a breach of his human rights was dismissed in 2022.