The compilation of evidence against the three hitmen allegedly behind the Caruana Galizia assassination is set to resume next week.

Brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, together with Vincent Muscat, currently awaiting trial over their alleged involvement in the October 2017 car bomb explosion, are set to re-appear before the Magistrates’ Court, although their case had already reached the Criminal Court, where preliminary pleas to the trial were being heard. 

This is not the first time that the records of the case were sent back to the Magistrates’ Court.

In fact, after the compilation had been wrapped up and forwarded to the Criminal Court, it had been ordered back to allow the gathering of fresh evidence through the testimony and cross-examination of a ‘new’ witness, Melvin Theuma, the alleged middleman.

Theuma was last summoned to testify against the three accused in February.

However, his testimony had been suspended since at the time he was testifying, copies of recordings referred to by the witness, were not available.

Those recordings were the subject of a separate magisterial inquiry over alleged money-laundering, tax evasion and illegal betting by Theuma and copies thereof had not been yet made available in the murder compilation. 

Given the importance of those recordings, the Attorney General subsequently filed an application last month, asking the Criminal Court, presided over by Madam Justice Edwina Grima, to send back the records of the compilation to the Magistrates’ Court for the recordings to be verified by Theuma on oath. 

That request was upheld and the records landed back before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit who, on Thursday, re-appointed the compilation for hearing next week and further nominated an expert to prepare copies of the recordings, about which Theuma is expected to give further evidence.