Supreme court turns down Yorgen Fenech’s appeal against repeated denial of bail

Yorgen Fenech’s rights have not been breached through repeated denial of bail as his continued detention was grounded on relevant and sufficient reasons, the Constitutional Court declared on Wednesday.

The former businessman, currently awaiting trial for his alleged complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, had filed an appeal against a judgment delivered in April which turned down his claims over “arbitrary objections” to his release.

Fenech has been under preventive custody since November 2019 when he was arrested on board his yacht, shortly after sailing out from Portomaso Marina. 

Delivering judgment, the court observed that Fenech was not challenging the validity of the original arrest but the repeated denial of bail.

His lawyers had accused the first court of lacking impartiality, its considerations showing that he was not presumed innocent. 

However, the Constitutional Court observed that the first court had expressly taken into account the appellant’s presumption of innocence and the fact that the serious nature of the criminal charges alone was not sufficient to deny him bail. 

A careful and faithful reading of the appealed judgment, rather than selected...