Keith Schembri needs more cash as court keeps €12.6 million freeze

Disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, has successfully obtained a court order allowing him access to more of his income despite remaining subject to a €12.6 million freezing order in the LNG power station money laundering case.

A Criminal Court decree delivered by Madam Justice Edwina Grima has varied the freezing order imposed in February 2025, authorising the release of €21,945 to cover the portion of Schembri’s salary that the court found he was entitled to receive during 2025. It also ordered that, from this year onwards, Schembri is to receive €1,828.75 every month, subject to the approval of the court-appointed administrator, Edward Hector Spiteri.

Bank of Valletta has been authorised to release the payments, while the underlying freezing order remains fully in force.

The order, issued a few days ago, offers a rare glimpse into Schembri’s financial situation more than six years after he resigned from Castille in the wake of the political crisis triggered by the investigation into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Since leaving public office, Schembri has returned to managing his private business interests, trading through Kasco Ltd and its subsidiaries, the family-owned group involved in food and paper imports, manufacturing and distribution.

The original freezing order, issued by Magistrate Rachel Montebello in February 2025, attached Schembri’s assets up to €12.63 million as part of the money laundering proceedings linked to the Electrogas case.

Similar orders were issued against former minister Konrad Mizzi, Nexia BT executives Brian Tonna and Karl Cini, businessman Yorgen Fenech, and other companies and individuals charged in the same case.

Although the court has now allowed Schembri access to part of his salary, it has not relaxed the freezing order itself, which continues to prohibit him from disposing of assets up to the amount specified by the court.

The ruling comes as Schembri’s name continues to dominate testimony in the ongoing jury trial of Yorgen Fenech over the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

During the proceedings, convicted hitmen George and Alfred Degiorgio have made serious allegations linking Schembri to the alleged plot to assassinate the journalist.

Schembri has categorically denied any involvement, and no evidence has yet been produced by the police, who, during the same investigation, were reporting to Schembri in his role as the prime minister’s chief of staff.

Despite years of investigations and repeated references to him during the public inquiry and the ongoing murder trial, Schembri has never been arraigned or charged by the police in connection with Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.

Instead, he faces separate criminal proceedings, including the Electrogas power station money laundering case, as well as fraud and kickback charges linked to the Allied Newspapers Group, publisher of The Times of Malta.