PN Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech Adami today dismissed claims that he would be investigated by Europol in relation to the Capital One Case.

The PL media claimed on Wednesday that Ana Gomes, a member of the PANA committee, said she would take the case to Europol.

The case revolves around the apparent reluctance by the Malta police to pursue a money laundering investigation into Capital One after Dr Fenech Adami’s name came up as a director of a fiduciary company.  Back then, Dr Fenech Adami was a Parliamentary Assistant for Home Affairs.

Dr Fenech Adami says he was never the subject of an investigation. An inquiry launched by the government some months back was, in fact, tasked with investigating why the authorities had not pursued the case, not Dr Fenech Adami personally.

“My chances of being investigated by Europol are as big as yours,” Dr Fenech Adami told a PL media reporter today, when asked to react to the One News story. “I challenge you to listen to the clip your station aired yesterday. Nowhere in it did Ana Gomes mention Europol or Beppe Fenech Adami.”

The PN Deputy Leader said what happened was that Ms Gomes asked him during the interview on Monday whether he would have a problem with being investigated by any authority. “Obviously, I said I did not have a problem.”

Dr Fenech Adami told the reporter that the PL newsroom had become accustomed to inventing lies about him. “Just last week I won a libel case against your station (over reports claiming construction abuse at his villa). I thought you had come here to apologise on behalf of your colleagues for sending the drones.”

The PN Deputy Leader insisted that no local authority, including the FIAU, the Attorney General, the MFSA, had so far spoken to him about any money laundering allegations.

The government announced earlier this week that the inquiry report has been submitted to the Prime Minister but will not be published yet. The report was initially scheduled to be finalised by 16 January, but the board of inquiry asked for a one-month extension.

The OPM said that since the investigation affected important institutions in the country, it will be analysed before it is published. The PN says the government is delaying the publication because the inquiry did not find what the OPM wanted.