Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech was arrested on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that he would consider recommending a pardon for a middleman offering information on the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia if such information can be corroborated in court.
Maltese investigative journalist Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb in Malta in October 2017, just a year after she and other investigative journalists released the "Panama Papers" for the world's public.
Fenech, a key player in Malta's energy sector, was arrested Wednesday morning after he was intercepted at sea aboard his yacht by Armed Forces of Malta personnel.
Fenech is a "person of interest" in the Caruana Galizia murder investigation, the Times of Malta quoted Muscat as saying.
Immediately after his arrest, Fenech resigned from the directorship of the company he was in charge of, handing over the position to his brother. Fenech acquired a huge concession from the government to set up a gas plant in Malta, and one of Galizia's investigations uncovered that Fenech had an undeclared company in Dubai - with assets owned by Maltese politicians - that may have helped him attain that position.