Five Farrugia brothers acquitted in oil-scandal case

Antonio, Gaetano, Raymond, Salvu and Emanuel Farrugia were acquitted of complicity charges linked to Malta’s oil-procurement scandal. Prosecutors alleged that they helped their brother George Farrugia bribe officials at Enemalta and the Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Company. George had received a presidential pardon in exchange for evidence. The court concluded that the case against the brothers was not proved to the criminal standard, with much of it resting on George’s testimony. The judgment closed another long-running strand of a scandal first exposed years earlier.