Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi repeated previous statements to journalists on Wednesday, saying that he does not know who owns the company 17 Black and has absolutely no association with it.

Asked whether after today's news he felt it was time to resign, Mizzi said that today is a day where it is clear that Malta's institutions are independent and that the Maltese police can work and are indeed working, and that the government did want to solve the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and in fact made all the resources, both local and international, available.

"I won't go into what happened today per se, but what I can say is that we have a system that works and the government will do everything under the sun for the truth to come out", Mizzi told journalists outside parliament.

Mizzi repeated previous statements with regards to his alleged connection to 17 Black - Yorgen Fenech's once secret company - and said that he has no association with the company and that he had been consistent in his responses to the press and his statements in this regard.

He said that he does not know who 17 Black or Macbridge, another company whose owner is unknown, belongs to, and has no association with any of those companies.

Mizzi said that he had asked his accountants to look into the connection between Hearnville, the Minister's own Panama company, and 17 Black, which was indicated in leaked emails.  He said that his accountants had shared the explanation for what is said in those emails to the inquiring magistrate.

Asked whether, given his alleged connection with 17 Black, he would at least suspend himself from the government until the full truth emerges, Mizzi once again said that he has been consistent when speaking about the company.

"I have always said the truth; nothing has changed from that truth; I'll stick with that truth; I've said it under oath and I will repeat it again, and I have no worry about it.  I am completely serene", Mizzi said.

Asked whether he thought Keith Schembri should resign, Mizzi said that Schembri can answer questions in a serene manner himself.

When once again asked for his own personal opinion as to whether the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff resign, Mizzi deviated completely from the question by saying that Schembri had registered two momentous wins and that what is being spoken about are not the criminal aspects, but "pure and simply" the political aspect, before also going on to list what the PN government had done before 2013 and even mentioning the 1977 assassination of Karin Grech.

"Do you remember the assassination of Karin Grech? Was that solved under a PN government and other previous governments? No. In this particular case we are ensuring that there are all the resources in place for this case to be solved."

Asked whether he regretted dealing with Yorgen Fenech through Electrogas for the gas power station in Delimara, he said that as a government they had gone through a procurement process which was evaluated with an independent body which then negotiated with the whole consortium, and which was approved by the European Commission and on a state aid basis.

"What I can tell you is that my relationship with Fenech was of a professional nature, like half of the parliament from both sides", Mizzi said, although when pressed he could not put a specific date on when he had last met Fenech in either a professional or a social setting, instead saying that he hadn't met him in a "while".