The three alleged hitmen in the Caruana Galizia assassination are set to return to court in the coming days following a court decree green lighting the gathering of fresh evidence. 

This latest stage in the ongoing judicial process against brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio and Vincent Muscat is expected to take place following a decree delivered by the Criminal Court on Thursday, which should also spell a return to the witness stand for self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma. 

Besides continuing and definitively concluding Theuma’s cross-examination, the court is also expected to receive Theuma’s recordings which are relevant to the case, a copy of his presidential pardon as well as transcripts of evidence completed by three court-appointed experts. 

Madam Justice Edwina Grima, presiding over the Criminal Court that is to conduct the trial by jury of the three men accused of carrying out the car bomb that killed the journalist back in October 2017, delivered Thursday's decree. 

In October last year, the same court had rejected all preliminary pleas to the trial - some 126 in all - in a 209-page judgment, after which the accused had given notice of appeal. 

However, on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal sent the records of the case back to the Criminal Court for new witnesses and fresh documents to be gathered by the Magistrates’ Court that had originally presided over the compilation of evidence proceedings. 

For this reason, and since both the Attorney General as well as the accused had requested such additional evidence, Madam Justice Grima referred the case back to the court of criminal inquiry, presided over by Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit for all evidence to be presented within this time-window.

The court ordered service of the decree upon all parties involved in the proceedings.