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| - Malta on Monday opened an inquiry into alleged links between former police chief Lawrence Cutajar and people implicated in the 2017 murder of prominent journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Witnesses questioned in a public audience said Cutajar is believed to have met a man considered an intermediary in the murder of the reporter who asked him to find a document important to the case. Cutajar resigned as chief of police in January amid accusations he botched the investigation into the murder of Caruana Galizia as well as probes into corruption scandals. That happened the same week Prime Minister Robert Abela took office. Cutajar, appointed to the post in 2016, has been top of the list of scalps demanded by activists seeking justice for Caruana Galizia, an investigative reporter described as a "one-woman WikiLeaks", who was killed in a 2017 car bomb explosion. They accused him of bungling the probe into the blogger's murder, and of failing to investigate Pilatus Bank, which was shut down in 2018 after its chairman was arrested in the United States on money-laundering charges. Caruana Galizia, who died aged 53, had accused the bank of processing corrupt payments. Three men suspected of carrying out the murder are currently on trial in Valletta Wealthy businessman Jorgen Fenech, who owns hotels and a racing horse stable in France, has been charged in Malta with complicity in Caruana Galizia's murder. His arrest led to the resignation of tourism minister Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, who was chief of staff to the then prime minister Joseph Muscat. Shortly before her assassination, Caruana Galizia had revealed that a company based in Dubai, 17 Black, paid two million euros to Schembri and Mizzi. After her death, a group of journalists who took up her investigation showed that 17 Black was owned by Fenech. Muscat resigned as prime minister in December following accusations that he had intervened to protect Schembri and Mizzi. In February French prosecutors launched an investigation into business dealings in France of a suspect in the killing of the Maltese journalist. str-ljm/pvh
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