Yorgen Fenech withdraws Arnaud injunction

Yorgen Fenech has withdrawn an injunction he had filed in a bid to have the lead investigator on the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case removed.

Fenech’s lawyers had argued that Police Inspector Keith Arnaud was too close to former OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, a person Fenech has implicated in the murder.

Fenech, who is suspected to be the mastermind in the Caruana Galizia assassination, had filed a warrant of prohibitory injunction seeking the removal of Arnaud from the investigation.

Fenech was first arrested on 20 November after the Armed Forces of Malta intercepted him at sea aboard his yacht trying to leave the country. He had been released on police bail and re-arrested a number of times, before being formally charged with Caruana Galizia’s murder on Saturday.

Fenech had sent a letter, through his lawyers Marion Camilleri and Gianluca Caruana Curran, to Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar asking him for Arnaud to be removed from the investigation.

The police, however, subsequently said in a statement that Arnaud would remain part of the investigation, since there was "no basis" for his removal, and that the results achieved to date in the investigation were testament to this.

The case was supposed to continue this morning, however, staff at the law courts informed journalists that the injunction had been withdrawn.

Camilleri explained that the merits of the injunction had been exhausted as he had now been arraigned. The related Constitutional case, however will continue to be heard.