A court yesterday dismissed a request by entrepreneur Anġlu Xuereb to halt the tendering process for a €2 million government project after he failed to satisfy all the requirements at law for this to take place.

Mr Xuereb took the matter to court after he received a threatening SMS during the tendering process which made reference to the New Year’s Day double stabbing in which his son-in-law lost his life.

He said he had a suspicion that the message had been sent to him by someone working for Heritage Malta, the same government entity that issued the tender for the construction of a visitors’ centre and restoration of the St Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat.

Mr Xuereb asked the court to issue an injunction to have the tender, which was in the process of being cancelled, stopped because of the pending police investigation.

The court, presided by Mr Justice Joseph Zammit Mckeon, was requested to decide upon the prima facie evidence to see if the request satisfied the law when it came to issuing the warrant.

The judge noted that Mr Xuereb had been disqualified from the tender on technical issues twice and although he won the first appeal he failed to file a second one and the tender was cancelled.

The judge said he could not stop the cancelling process from going ahead once the cancelling process had already been completed.

He added that the police investigation was also irrelevant to the proceedings at this stage.