Times of Malta journalist Ivan Fenech has passed away today, aged 55, after a sudden illness.

Fenech was part of the Ahn’ahna jew m’Ahniex production in the late 1980s, considered a breakthrough in Maltese television, bringing parody and political satire on Maltese screens for the first time.

Fenech played the part of a Maltese man stranded in a faraway land known as Cukaj, and for many years later many people still referred to him by that name.

Fenech first joined Times of Malta in the 1980s as a journalist. He joined the Planning Authority uin 1997 and later emigrated to 
Germany, where he lived for several years. 

He returned to Malta in 2013, rejoining the Times of Malta as an assistant editor. 

Fenech leaves to mourn his wife Katrin and his daughter Kyra.

The Malta Independent expresses its condolences to the Fenech family and our colleagues at Times of Malta.