ROME (AP) — A former top government aide in Malta who was investigated by a journalist later killed by a car bomb has been arraigned in a Maltese court on charges of money-laundering, fraud and corruption. Keith Schembri entered a not-guilty plea to the charges, which stem from an investigation of alleged financial crimes going back years. Schembri was now-former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff and for years one of Malta’s more politically influential figures. He was denied bail and jailed after Saturday’s arraignment. Maltese government officials on Sunday confirmed the development in the case. Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia implicated Schembri in cases of alleged corruption before she was killed in 2017.
