Former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri said that Yorgen Fenech indicated his involvement in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a conversation with him, but insisted that he believed Fenech was not acting alone and was under the influence of drugs. Schembri was testifying for the second day in the trial of Fenech, … Continued

The Planning Authority is expected to sanction two ODZ illegal swimming pools that form part of a controversial Sannat apartment development by rogue Gozitan developer Joseph Portelli, despite a landmark Court of Appeal judgment that revoked the original permit more than two years ago. A new case officer’s report recommends granting sanctioning permission for the … Continued

Malta’s property market is showing clear signs of cooling after years of rapid growth, with homes taking longer to sell and buyers enjoying a wider choice of properties, according to a new analysis by the Central Bank of Malta. The findings, published in the Central Bank’s latest Business Dialogue publication, suggest that while house prices … Continued

Former Housing Minister Roderick Galdes has been left politically isolated and is struggling to secure a return to government despite remaining on the public payroll, a situation that government sources say has fuelled his first public attack on Robert Abela’s administration since his dramatic downfall earlier this year, The Shift can reveal. Galdes, who resigned … Continued

MIDI plc has completed the sale of a portfolio of income-generating commercial properties at Tigné Point for €10.2 million as the company continues to dispose of assets to meet its financial obligations and prepare for the conclusion of its operations. The company announced that it has executed the final deed transferring 11 commercial outlets beneath … Continued

By the time you read this, no doubt the usual suspects will already have concluded that anyone criticising the government’s Human Rights Commission Bill must obviously be against human rights. Some will probably manage to throw The Hon. Rosianne Cutajar personally into the mix for good measure. It is the standard script: if you question … Continued

On Thursday afternoon, jurors who will be responsible for determining the fate of alleged murder accomplice Yorgen Fenech listened to a recording made by confessed murder middleman Melvin Theuma, indicating his despair and anger about the murder plot. At one point, he said he would be “better off if they killed me”, in reference to … Continued

Malta Enterprise Chairperson William Wait, who has repeatedly faced questions over conflicts of interest and governance failures, has taken on another senior role in the private sector, becoming an executive director of Smartcare Holdings Ltd while retaining his sensitive government appointment. The latest job, disclosed in a company announcement issued to the Malta Stock Exchange, … Continued

Maltese taxpayers are footing a €2.5 million bill for tonight’s Isle of MTV concert under a three-year agreement signed by the government in 2025 with Viacom International Media Networks, represented locally by G7 Events, The Shift has learned. The figure, revealed for the first time, sheds light on the true public cost of one of … Continued

Former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri summoned one of Yorgen Fenech’s former business partners to Castille in the months before Fenech’s arrest in 2019, asking whether the businessman accused of masterminding Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder had been in contact, jurors heard on Tuesday. Johann Cremona, who ran BestPlay Gaming Ltd with Fenech, testified that … Continued

A new government-funded scheme designed to pay artists and cultural organisations for legal advice has immediately raised questions over a potential conflict of interest, with Arts Council Malta’s Executive Chairman, Luke Dalli, remaining a partner in a private law firm that specialises in many of the legal services the grant is intended to finance. Announced … Continued

Edwin Brincat, the longtime friend and mentor of pardoned middleman Melvin Theuma, was pressed on Monday morning over inconsistencies in his testimony about what he knew of Theuma’s recordings, disgraced former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, ex-bodyguard for the Prime Minister Kenneth Camilleri, and the police investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder. Brincat, known … Continued

Governments always put the best possible spin on bad news. It comes with the territory, and we, the Great Unwashed, have to grin and bear it. Friday’s publication of the European Commission’s Rule of Law Report provides a masterclass in that little exercise. The Justice Ministry rushed out a statement proclaiming that Malta’s justice reforms … Continued

A group of 31 Maltese MeDirect Bank investors has filed a judicial letter against the bank’s new Czech owners, alleging they reneged on commitments made during the acquisition of the Maltese bank and warned that they will be seeking damages linked to an alleged €2 million compensation package. The judicial letter, filed before the First … Continued

Two witnesses testifying in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder trial on Friday morning offered a glimpse into the way money, favours and instructions appear to move through Malta’s criminal underworld: through trusted intermediaries, deliberate silence, and a carefully maintained lack of curiosity. Lawrence Pace, known as il-Lolly, told jurors that pardoned middleman Melvin Theuma had … Continued

Former Sistine Chapel choir master Massimo Palombella, who was dismissed from his post at the Vatican before later being convicted by a Vatican tribunal, was also hosted at Gozo’s St George’s Basilica as part of a government-funded cultural festival. The Shift has established that Palombella travelled to Gozo just days before his appearance at St … Continued

Convicted murderer George Degiorgio claimed in court on Wednesday that the same group of people involved in an alleged 2015 plot to kill Daphne Caruana Galizia used pardoned middleman Melvin Theuma to revive the murder plan in 2017, aligning his testimony with claims previously made by the accused, Yorgen Fenech. Degiorgio, who was convicted of … Continued

During a heated afternoon session in court, state prosecutors accused Yorgen Fenech’s legal team of “acting in bad faith” after the defence requested to cross-examine convicted killer Vince Muscat with a document that had not been previously admitted as evidence in the acts of the case. This document, which refers to statements that Muscat had … Continued

Convicted hitman Vince Muscat told jurors on Monday that the men who carried out Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination knew “two, three weeks” in advance that police were planning to raid the Marsa potato shed on 4 December 2017. Muscat, who is serving a 15-year sentence for his role in the murder, was testifying in the … Continued

MEP David Casa has defended his vote in the European Parliament to extend a temporary legal framework that allows online platforms to detect and report child sexual abuse material, insisting critics have confused it with a separate and more controversial proposal that is still under negotiation. MEPs Casa and David Aguis voted in favour while … Continued

Bank of Valletta has defended a dramatic increase in the remuneration of its Chief Executive, Kenneth Farrugia, after The Shift questioned why the head of Malta’s largest bank received almost €650,000 in 2025 – a rise of almost 68% over the previous year. The bank’s latest annual report shows that Farrugia received a total remuneration … Continued

Keith Schembri, the chief of staff of former disgraced Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, repeatedly told jurors he could not remember key events and insisted he did not know confessed murder middleman Melvin Theuma as he took the witness stand on Tuesday in the trial by jury of businessman Yorgen Fenech. During the first hours of … Continued

Fresh testimony before the ongoing Yorgen Fenech murder jury has raised new questions about the disappearance of Keith Schembri’s personal mobile phone after a police officer revealed that investigators searching his Mellieħa villa were instructed to collect only the electronic devices “flagged” by the former prime minister’s chief of staff. The evidence, given on Monday … Continued

Eight years after Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated by a car bomb outside her Bidnija home, the jury trial of Yorgen Fenech, accused of complicity in the crime, has offered the most detailed public examination yet of the relationships, conversations and manoeuvres that surrounded the murder and its aftermath. While jurors will ultimately decide whether … Continued

“Take id-Dar tal-Providenza,” Robert Abela said in an interview with The Times of Malta. “The majority of their staff are foreign workers.  I won’t say 100%, but close to 100% are foreigners.  Do Maltese workers want to go back to doing that work? Or do they want to work in the gaming sector?” The work … Continued

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 … Continued

Yorgen Fenech’s former business partner Johann Cremona admitted on Thursday that he turned to disgraced former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri for reassurance after Fenech’s arrest, telling jurors he was panicking and feared he too would be dragged into the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation. Cremona, who ran BestPlay Gaming Ltd with Fenech, was … Continued

A controversial application to convert protected ruins in the heart of the Buskett woodlands into so-called ‘farmer’s quarters’ has been unanimously refused by the Planning Commission, despite U-turns by two government regulators who had withdrawn their earlier objections to the project. The three-member Planning Commission voted 3-0 to reject developer Alex Tanti’s application to convert … Continued

I started writing this literally minutes after the electricity came back on Tuesday evening, and I’m finishing it at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, during a subsequent cut that has continued for hours. For reasons I do not pretend to understand (anything more technical than a light switch defeats me), I still have some … Continued

Yorgen Fenech’s former business partner Johann Cremona admitted on Tuesday that he did not want pardoned middleman Melvin Theuma to go to the police because he feared the fallout from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation would destroy his business and cost him “everything”. Cremona, who ran BestPlay Gaming Ltd with Fenech, was testifying in … Continued

Another summer, another national ritual: checking whether the lights will stay on. A night without electricity during a heatwave is bad enough. Four consecutive days of power cuts is something else entirely. It is no longer an inconvenience. It is a failure of governance. As I write this, the power has gone yet again. Fans … Continued

The Corinthia Group – one of Malta’s largest hospitality conglomerates –  has continued to dispose of property assets as it seeks to manage mounting debt and liquidity pressures, with one of its subsidiaries selling the former Match Factory site in Marsa to AX Group for €15 million. The latest disposal comes just weeks after International … Continued

Edwin Brincat, the longtime friend and mentor of pardoned middleman Melvin Theuma, told jurors on Saturday how disgraced former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar entered the picture after Theuma had begun panicking about secret recordings linking Yorgen Fenech to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder. Brincat, known as il-Ġojja, was testifying in Fenech’s trial by jury. Fenech stands … Continued

An early end to Friday’s hearing in the Yorgen Fenech murder trial saw witness testimonies wrap up by around 3.30 pm, after the prosecution struggled to summon six witnesses who were not available on short notice. Madam Justice Edwina Grima was visibly displeased when the court was informed that no further witnesses were available, warning … Continued

Former Office of the Prime Minister official Aleander Balzan, who was forced to shoulder the blame for Labour’s disappointing performance in the 2024 MEP elections, has now been rewarded with a senior government executive appointment despite having no known experience in either education or the construction sector. The Shift has learned that Balzan has been … Continued

In a decision widely anticipated, the Planning Authority has approved the sanctioning of the illegal padel court complex developed by Gżira FC president Sharlon Pace on Manoel Island. Although Planning Authority officials, headed by Jonathan Orlando, had recommended that the illegal development be regularised against a sanctioning fine of just €900, Planning Board chairman Emanuel … Continued

Apparently, Malta’s economic success is now measured in horsepower, marina berths and the number of boarding passes tucked into the average family’s kitchen drawer. Robert Abela says so. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? This is, after all, a Prime Minister who inhabits a world rather different from that of the families he lectures. If your … Continued

Convicted killer Vince Muscat told the court earlier this morning that the suppliers who provided the bomb that killed journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had offered him €1,500 a month “to say nothing” while held in prison. Muscat, who is a key witness in the murder trial in which Yorgen Fenech stands accused of voluntary homicide … Continued

In one of Prime Minister Robert Abela’s rare interviews with the press beyond the Labour Party media, he attempted to explain his government’s record, except it was about carefully chosen anecdotes, selective statistics and false choices. In his interview with The Times of Malta, he attempted to recast visible consumption as proof of national prosperity … Continued

Yorgen Fenech’s lawyer suggested in court on Saturday that the defence has additional evidence extracted from Keith Schembri’s devices, prompting a sharp exchange with the prosecution during the murder trial on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. The exchange occurred while court expert Martin Bajada was testifying about digital forensic work carried out in the case, including … Continued

The jury hearing the trial of businessman Yorgen Fenech was plunged into fresh turmoil on Tuesday after a dramatic courtroom confrontation between two key witnesses prompted the defence to seek the dissolution of the jury, only for the presiding judge to reject the request and order proceedings to continue. The extraordinary scenes unfolded after former … Continued

The Planning Authority has suspended an application to turn the historic Busbesija British military barracks in Mosta into a five-star luxury hotel after its own planning officials concluded that the proposal, as submitted, cannot be approved. Rather than proceeding to a vote on the case officer’s recommendation for refusal, the Planning Commission decided to put … Continued

A previously unknown name allegedly linked to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia surfaced during the fifth week of Yorgen Fenech’s jury trial as prosecutors continued presenting documentary and forensic evidence before the Criminal Court. The most notable development came when the jury was shown correspondence from Italian prosecutors in Catania, included among documents … Continued

Former Office of the Prime Minister official Aaron Zahra, who was forced out of Castille as part of Chief of Staff Mark Mallia’s restructuring of Robert Abela’s private secretariat, had already secured himself a lucrative landing spot at the Malta Tourism Authority before his departure, The Shift has learned. According to multiple sources, Zahra’s removal … Continued

A €12 million office lease and refurbishment project overseen by former Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) Executive Chairman Joseph Cuschieri has come under fresh criticism from the National Audit Office (NAO), raising new questions over Robert Abela’s government’s decision to return the disgraced regulator to a senior public post responsible for managing hundreds of millions of … Continued

The Planning Authority has postponed a decision on whether to sanction the massive illegal expansion of Gianpula Village, in the limits of Żebbuġ, after some board members raised fresh concerns over noise pollution, which can still be heard almost daily during the summer months from various surrounding localities. The application, filed by Roger De Giorgio … Continued

No sooner had Robert Abela bragged that “the greatness of Labour” had transformed our quality of life than the European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report exposed the dire reality to which he and his party have reduced the country. Abela boasted that thanks to Labour we can now afford “luxuries” we never dreamt of … Continued

Enemalta’s live online map, intended to inform the public where electricity outages are occurring, appeared to buckle under the scale of Malta’s latest power crisis, failing to reflect widespread blackouts reported across the country. As hundreds of residents turned to the utility’s website to check whether faults in their areas had been registered, The Shift … Continued

What began as a rural farmhouse surrounded by agricultural fields more than half a century ago is now on the verge of being officially rubber-stamped as one of Malta’s largest entertainment complexes, despite decades of illegal development, abuse of laws, impunity and strong objections from the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA). The Planning Authority is … Continued

Disgraced former Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar walked straight into a taxpayer-funded government consultancy on the very day he was forced to resign from the police force, a decision that now continues to haunt one of Prime Minister Robert Abela’s first major appointments after taking office in 2020. Cutajar’s latest controversial testimony during the ongoing Yorgen … Continued

Disgraced former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar was accused of lying under oath and of being corrupt on Monday afternoon after a wiretapped phone call contradicted his claim that he had not discussed the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case with anyone before testifying in separate proceedings. Cutajar, who led the police force during the murder investigation … Continued

A Church-owned historic palazzo in the heart of Valletta, originally leased to private developers to be transformed into a boutique hotel, is instead set to become an extension of Malta’s law courts after the government awarded thedevelopers a lease worth almost €6 million. The Shift can reveal that Palazzo Carafa Ltd, the company leasing the … Continued

Two government watchdogs have performed a dramatic U-turn on a controversial plan to convert protected ruins in the heart of Buskett into so-called “farmer’s quarters”, reviving an application that the Planning Authority’s own technical experts continue to insist should be refused. The latest reversal, involving the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) and the Superintendence for … Continued

Prime Minister Robert Abela’s record on the rule of law has received a damning assessment from the European Commission, which has concluded that Malta has made little or no progress on most of the key reforms repeatedly demanded by Brussels during his premiership. The findings, contained in the Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report published … Continued

Prime Minister Robert Abela has been accused of betraying the Maltese public after the government-appointed Planning Authority approved the sanctioning of Sharlon Pace’s illegal commercial padel complex on Manoel Island and authorised its expansion. The Planning Board on Thursday voted 11-1 to regularise the 20 padel courts that had been built illegally on the site … Continued

Two newly inaugurated restaurants at db Group’s controversial City Centre development in St George’s Bay have been hit with a Planning Authority enforcement notice shortly after opening their doors to customers without the certifications required by their development permit. The enforcement action comes just days after the official launch of the first outlets within the … Continued

Key witness and convicted murderer Alfred Degiorgio refused to testify about his involvement in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder trial, accusing the court of “breaching all the rights” he and his brother and co-conspirator George Degiorgio had. Instead, the witness, who was held in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions in a case … Continued

America’s star football player got a red card for stamping on his opponent’s foot.  The referee didn’t whistle for a foul.  But VAR (video assistant referee) picked it up, and Valerin Balogun was sent off. That meant an automatic suspension for the next match against Belgium. But hours before the match, FIFA announced that Balogun … Continued

Vince Muscat, currently serving a 15-year sentence for his involvement in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, confirmed that he had already begun discussing the car bomb hit with one of the other executors “on the day” that the Labour Party won the 2017 general elections. Muscat was testifying in court during the murder trial … Continued

FBI cellular analysis investigator Richard Fennern, who testified in court earlier on Saturday during the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder trial, described how the FBI was able to pin down the phone numbers used to detonate the car bomb that took the journalist’s life by 23 October, 2017 – a mere week after the attack. Fennern’s … Continued