Caruana Galizia public inquiry: 17 Black documents seized by police helped identify more people for questioning

Updated at 6:53pm with Owen Bonnici reaction to claim Nexia BT had office in Justice Ministry

Documents linked to 17 Black and electronic equipment seized from Yorgen Fenech enabled police to identify a number of people for questioning, the Caruana Galizia public inquiry heard.

The testimony was given by former Economic Crime Unit head Ian Abdilla when asked about the Memorandum and Articles of Association for Dubai company 17 Black that were seized from Yorgen Fenech's house.

Abdilla said the documents were sent to Dubai for authentication. "I cannot take a document that I had never seen the likes of before and say this is genuine… If I had to bet, the documents seized appeared authentic and genuine," he said.

Abdilla added that as a consequence of the documents, a number of people of interest were identified for questioning.

When asked about the Enemalta wind farm deal in Montenegro in which the State utility company had bought the shares of a wind farm project from Cifidex for an inflated price, Abdilla said the police came across Cifidex from a transaction with 17 Black.

“More evidence emerged from electronic equipment seized by the police,” he said.

Abdilla lamented the lack of resources his unit had to investigate financial crime.

"Had we had the expertise and resources we have now, then we could have functioned better," he admitted.

But throughout the inquiry, Abdilla continued to defend his position as to why the servers of Nexia BT were not seized when the Panama Papers scandal emerged locally in March 2016 and later, internationally, in April 2016. The servers were only seized a year later as part of the Egrant inquiry.

Abdilla also said that Nexia BT had an office within the Justice Ministry. Computers had also been seized by the police from that office, he claimed.

The inquiry continues next Wednesday with the testimony of Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo.

The inquiry is tasked, among other things, with determining whether the State did all it could to prevent the murder from happening.

In the last sitting, Abdilla said the police feared they would be sued if they seized the servers of Nexia BT in 2016 with no proof of wrongdoing.

Abdilla also defended the decision back then not to call in Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri for questioning when their Panama companies were outed. The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit had compiled a report, which it passed on to the police for further investigation over suspicion of money laundering.

Abdilla insisted under questioning that it would have been too difficult to challenge individuals with just an FIAU report.

Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb just outside her Bidnija house on 16 October 2017. Three men, George Degiorgio, Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat, have been charged with carrying out the assassination, while Yorgen Fenech is charged with masterminding the murder.

Melvin Theuma, who acted as a middleman between Fenech and the three killers, was granted a presidential pardon last year to tell all.

The inquiry board is composed of retired judge Michael Mallia, former chief justice Joseph Said Pullicino and Madame Justice Abigail Lofaro.

Owen Bonnici denies Nexia BT ever had ministry office

In a reaction to the reports of Abdilla’s claims that Nexia BT had an office within the Justice Ministry, Owen Bonnici disputed that this was the case.

The Education Minister and former justice minister said on Facebook that neither Nexia BT not any representative, owner of employee of the company any had an office in the ministry.

He also negated the claim that Nexia BT had servers at the ministry, or that any servers had been seized.

“This is another invention, from start to finish, of Dr Jason Azzopardi,” he said.