Maltese police have arrested a prominent businessman on his yacht as he tried to leave the country's waters.

Maltese military intercepted Yorgen Fenech's luxury vessel Gio while he was on course for Sicily in Italy.

The yacht, which left the Portomaso marine shortly before dawn on Wednesday, was forced back to port and Fenech was arrested.

The businessman is a very prominent hotelier and director of the Maltese power grid.

His name was on leaked documents as a source of income for companies named in the Panama Papers.


Image: Police aboard the yacht "Gio" after it was intercepted on a course for Sicily by the Maltese military

Officials said on Tuesday they had arrested the suspected middleman in the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017, and that he was offering to identify the mastermind.

Malta's government said it would offer a pardon to the suspect.

It was not immediately clear whether there was a connection with Fenech's arrest.

No details of any charges against the businessman have been revealed but authorities would have 48 hours to decide on them.

Image: Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a bomb attack in 2017

Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has not directly tied the arrest to the murder of Ms Caruana Galizia, but he did say that it appeared to result from comments he made on Tuesday regarding the suspected middleman's possible pardon.

Mr Muscat said he instructed police to be on the lookout for unusual actions by "people of interest" in the long-unsolved murder.

He told reporters: "If I had not given these instructions, maybe today we might be speaking of persons of interest who might have escaped."

Image: Yorgen Fenech is seen at the Oracle Casino in St Paul's Bay, Malta, in 2014

Mr Muscat declined to comment further out of concern that any comments might prejudice a case.

Ms Caruana Galizia wrote in her blog about a mystery company in Dubai called 17 Black Limited, alleging it was connected to Maltese politicians, eight months before she died in a car bombing in February 2017.

Her claims were published without any evidence and she was unable to discover who owned the company.

Secret Panama companies owned by then Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, the government chief of staff, stood to receive payments from 17 Black for unspecified services, according to a December 2015 email which was uncovered by Maltese financial regulators.

The email said the Panama companies expected payments of up to $2m (£1.5m) within a year from 17 Black.