As it happened: Chris Cardona sat out cabinet meetings on Daphne murder pardons
Prosecution confronts Arthur Azzopardi's testimony with that of investigator Keith Arnaud
Updated 12.20pm
Former minister Chris Cardona did not take part in cabinet discussions concerning pardons linked to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, he testified on Thursday.
The former minister told a court that he sat out those discussions because of allegations linking him to an aborted plot to murder the journalist.
He testified that he contacted the police after a Times of Malta journalist approached him for comment ahead of a story revealing that Vince Muscat had implicated him in an aborted plot to murder journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
He said he subsequently gave police a statement distancing himself from all claims made. Cardona had publicly described the allegations as "pure evil fiction".
When asked why he had not sued Muscat, Cardona said he could not do so because the claims were based on hearsay.
Vince Muscat, known as il-Koħħu, testified that he and others involved in Caruana Galizia's 2017 murder were first asked to kill her years earlier, as part of a plot led by Cardona and negotiated by his associate David Gatt. Muscat said the plot never materialised as a deposit requested was never paid.
Muscat testified against the four men charged in the case. Robert Agius, known as Ta' Maksar, and his associate Jamie Vella are accused of supplying the bomb that killed the journalist. They are further accused, along with Adrian Agius and George Degiorgio, of murdering solicitor Carmel Chircop two years earlier. All four are pleading not guilty.
Cardona, who served as Economy Minister between 2013 and January 2020 and Labour deputy leader for four years, testified briefly at the start of a court hearing on Thursday. Journalists were left outside the courtroom.
Arthur Azzopardi’s recollections
The former politician’s testimony was brief and fairly uneventful. That of the following witness, lawyer Arthur Azzopardi, was not.
Azzopardi was Vince Muscat’s lawyer in 2018 and 2019 and was involved in meetings concerning his client’s request for a presidential pardon.
His testimony focused on recollections of those meetings, what was said in them and concerns that developed about his safety and that of Muscat.
On various occasions, Azzopardi’s testimony clashed with that of other witnesses in the case, primarily those of Muscat and lead investigator Keith Arnaud.
Muscat said it was Azzopardi who first raised the prospect of requesting a €1 million reward for information about the Caruana Galizia murder; Azzopardi insisted it was Muscat who mentioned it and said he didn’t even know the reward was on offer until that moment.
The lawyer acknowledged that he and Muscat were becoming increasingly concerned about the Degiorgio brothers getting to know that Muscat was speaking to the police. He even asked for Muscat to be put in a witness protection programme overseas but that faltered because Muscat only speaks Maltese, he said.
While both Azzopardi and Arnaud confirmed that in a final meeting held in October 2019, Azzopardi mentioned getting Muscat to recant all his evidence, the two men’s recollections differed on the motivation.
Arnaud said Azzopardi’s proposal even came as a shock to Muscat, who insisted that he was sticking by his version of events because “it is the truth”.
Azzopardi said the suggestion was a proposal to put out a “red herring”, in an attempt to identify who was leaking information about the talks.
Arnaud and Azzopardi also could not agree on what was said in a private conversation between the two about Muscat getting the 1 million reward.
Arnaud had flat-out rejected that idea and said Azzopardi then threatened to withdraw Muscat as a witness. Azzopardi said he warned the police officer to be careful because Muscat could trick him [jilgħabek].
The case continues.
Live blog
AG to reply to defence's arguments
12.15pm When the court hearing resumes, prosecutors will address jurors and reply to the defence's arguments.
We will have a separate article available later in the day about what was said in court by the prosecution.
In the meantime, we have updated the top of this article with a summary of this morning's testimony.
This live blog will end here. Thank you for having joined us.
No further questions
11.55am No further questions for Arnaud, who steps off the stand. The judge orders a break for lunch until 2.30pm.
'I told him it wasn't his call'
11.52am Arnaud insists that had Azzopardi really told him ‘watch out cos he’ll play you [attent għax jilgħabek]' he would have asked him to clarify what he meant by that.
Azzopardi is adamant: "When I told Arnaud that, he was taken aback. I told him it wasn’t his call whether he [Muscat] got the million or not, it was a cabinet decision."
Different lines
11.44am Questions turn to a private conversation between Arnaud and Azzopardi, in which the latter mentioned the €1 million reward.
Both men agreed on that point, but then their recollections differ.
Arnaud: I was surprised [at the request]. I wouldn’t even have dared suggest that a killer receives €1 million. And he responded by saying ‘then he won’t testify’.
Azzopardi: I told him ‘watch out cos he’ll play you [attent għax jilgħabek].'
Was it a red herring or a genuine request?
11.38am The prosecutor asks Arnaud about their final meeting, on October 9. Why did Azzopardi say Muscat wanted to change his version of events?
Arnaud: “Rather than change, he said he wanted to retract. He told me to tell my bosses that Vince had clashed with Melvin [Theuma] in the past and risked retribution. Information was being leaked about the pardon and there was a fear it would be the cherry on the cake.
Arnaud insists Vince Muscat was surprised by Azzopardi’s push to have testimony retracted.
“I turned to Vince and asked him if he wanted to say something. He said ‘What I said is the truth and I want to stick to it, that’s the truth.’
Arnaud recalls Azzopardi telling him he feared for his personal safety and that of Muscat.
Azzopardi confirms everything Arnaud just said, but insists the request to retract information was intended as a red herring to expose the person leaking information.
What was discussed in those meetings?
11.31am Arnaud returns, and questions turn to the topics of those meetings.
Arnaud says the meetings were focused on Muscat’s bid for a pardon but that the reward money was never mentioned among the three of them.
“I had told Vince [Muscat] that we don’t have enough [information for a pardon]. I explained we needed to build up more to get there. I gave him feedback. The million was never mentioned between ourselves, it was Arthur who mentioned it to me.
“Maybe the pardon was not mentioned during the April 23 meeting, but it was definitely mentioned.”
Arthur Azzopardi says he does not recall Arnaud giving Muscat feedback on his information, but adds “I don’t have notes, these were long conversations”.
How many times did they meet?
11.20am The prosecution resumes questioning.
Keith Arnaud testified that there were “a number” of meetings involving himself, Vince Muscat and Arthur Azzopardi. Azzopardi testified that there were three meetings in all.
Arnaud: “I don’t have my notes with me, but the dates are listed in my diary. There were definitely meetings on April 23 and 24. One or two others in 2018, then two more in 2019. And a last one on October 9, 2019. In between, there were meetings between me and Azzopardi.”
Azzopardi is asked, again, how many times the three met. He, again, says they met three times.
At this point, Arnaud is allowed out of court to contact his colleagues and ask them to fetch him his diary.
Arnaud in court
11.10am Assistant police commissioner Keith Arnaud is in court.
Cardona's testimony
10.40am Blink and miss it: Chris Cardona testified right at the start of today's court hearing, but journalists were not present in the courtroom because the door granting them access was locked.
A journalist had to fetch a court marshal and ask them to open the door, by which time it was all over.
We're informed that in his brief testimony, the former minister said that:
- he was not involved in cabinet discussions about pardons linked to Caruana Galizia's murder
- he contacted the police after a journalist contacted him to comment about allegations made about him to police by Vince Muscat
- he gave police a statement in which he refuted those allegations
- he couldn't sue Muscat because his allegations were "based on hearsay"
Meanwhile, outside court
10.20am Metres away from the law courts building, a silent saga concerning the Daphne memorial at the foot of the Great Siege monument continues.
Members of activist group Occupy Justice have been placing placards, flowers and candles there ever since Caruana Galizia was killed in 2017. A few months ago, those items started disappearing, as blogger Neville Gafà started placing placards of his own at the site - mainly deriding the slain journalist - in what he described as an exercise in free speech.
Gafà has since launched a petition calling for the law to forbid any national monument from being turned into a memorial site and the battle over the Valletta monument has escalated ever since this trial began - a trial which concerns Caruana Galizia and which relatives of hers are attending every day.
The memorial was cleared of any placards as of Thursday morning. Photo: Jonathan BorgArnaud summoned to court
10.12am Prosecutors want Keith Arnaud in the courtroom, to confront his version of events with Azzopardi’s.
The court agrees to that request and postpones the sitting for 30 minutes, until the police officer arrives.
Different recollections
10.10am Azzopardi is asked if he was always present when Muscat spoke with Arnaud. He recalls one meeting – the second – in which he was only present in the afternoon.
“I was in court that day and Arnaud called me. I told Vince Muscat to tell him the truth,” he says.
He says the three of them met three times: twice in April 2018 and once in October 2019.
Azzopardi: Muscat never mentioned the reward in those meetings, but he didn’t mention the pardon in my presence, either.
He reiterates that he [Azzopardi] mentioned the reward money to Arnaud privately. Arnaud had replied by saying there was no way they would be paying a reward to a killer.
Azzopardi said he advised Arnaud to break that news softly to Muscat. He denies threatening to withdraw his client’s testimony [which is what Arnaud testified Azzopardi said in response].
Azzopardi: €1m reward was 'news to me'
10am The prosecution now questions Azzopardi’s testimony about the €1 million reward.
Azzopardi claimed that Muscat first told him about it. But the reward had been publicised and had made headlines. Was he the only person not to know about it?
“With the number of cases I had at the time, I barely knew what was going on. It was news to me,” Azzopardi says.
He confirms that he never requested the reward for Muscat in writing.
Threatening to retract Muscat's evidence
9.55am The prosecutor asks Azzopardi if it’s true he met with Melvin Theuma while wearing a [audio recording] wire, to bolster his client’s version of events.
The defence objects and the question is discarded.
Azzopardi is asked about Vince Muscat’s bail requests. The lawyer recalls his client being afraid to eat food in prison, for fear of it being poisoned.
Azzopardi says he had proposed, to Arnaud during a 2019 meeting, to put word out within the police that Muscat was going to retract everything he had said. That was his idea of a red herring to flush out the source of leaks to the Degiorgios.
The prosecutor notes that Arnaud had recalled the meeting differently, saying he was shocked when Azzopardi said his client would be retracting his evidence. Azzopardi stands his ground and insists on his version of events.
“Was Vince Muscat visibly flustered when you told Arnaud he was to retract anything?” the prosecutor presses.
Azzopardi insists they never seriously discussed retraction and it was just a ploy to identify leakers.
Muscat asked for foreign witness protection programme
9.45am Azzopardi asked for Muscat to be placed in a witness protection programme overseas. But there were bureaucratic problems as well as practical ones – Muscat only speaks Maltese, the lawyer says in reply to questions.
The prosecutor asks Azzopardi if it’s true that Muscat and his family received threats that involved mention of ‘acid’.
“He wasn’t told of the threats. He was afraid they would throw acid at his children,” Azzopardi replies.
Fears for his safety
9.41am Azzopardi is asked about concerns that the Degiorgio brothers had gotten to know that Vince Muscat was speaking to investigators.
He recalls Muscat telling him that he had been called into a meeting at the lawyers’ room in Corradino Prison. The Degiorgios and their then-lawyer, William Cuschieri, were present.
Azzopardi confirms he had concerns about his own personal safety. He asked Arnaud and then-police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar for police protection. Cutajar “shot that down with an insult,” Azzopardi testifies, but eventually agreed to assigning a patrol car to drive past his house while on duty.
Muscat gave police helpful information
9.35am Prosecutor Godwin Cini cross-examines Azzopardi.
He reminds Azzopardi of a meeting he had with Arnaud on a bench at the University of Malta.
Azzopardi confirms that meeting and recalls Arnaud taking down notes. He confirms that he raised the prospect of a pardon for Vince Muscat in the first meetings.
Azzopardi also confirms that he, Arnaud and Muscat met for the first time on April 23, 2019.
He also confirms that Arnaud told them that Muscat had provided investigators with information that led them to the right places.
Azzopardi confirms that Muscat was the first to drop Melvin Theuma’s name, as the police did not know anything about him. [Theuma has told police he was engaged by businessman Yorgen Fenech to arrange Caruana Galizia’s murder].
Talk of a red herring
9.30am Discussions about the reward were concrete enough for Azzopardi to give a relative of Muscat’s a bank IBAN number for the eventual transfer of money.
Did Vince Muscat mention anything about the million?
“I did not ask him, he was the one who mentioned it. He told me to install CCTV cameras at my home. And that he would use the money to pay me and live off it,” Azzopardi says.
Azzopardi says he had one final meeting with Arnaud and Muscat in September or October of 2019. They met at Arnaud’s office.
At the time, information was being leaked. Azzopardi said he suggesting planting a red herring to try and identify the culprit, but Muscat did not agree with that. Arnaud then asked Muscat “are you sure you’re telling us everything?”
Azzopardi said he left the meeting and “called it a day”.
Azzopardi, Muscat and the €1 million
9.25am Defence lawyer Amadeus Cachia is the first to ask Azzopardi questions.
Azzopardi says he had made it clear to Vince Muscat that he did not want to defend him in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case [Muscat is serving a 15-year sentence for having helped to carry out that murder].
He says Muscat asked him about the possibility of getting a pardon. The following week, Muscat about the pardon and €1 million reward, telling him he had heard about the reward on TVM.
Azzopardi says he then met with investigator Keith Arnaud a couple of times.
On one occasion, he reminded Arnaud about the reward but Arnaud “took it badly”, he recalls.
The reward was also mentioned during a meeting with then-Attorney General Peter Grech, Azzopardi says. Grech suggested that Muscat should say he was willing to testify “to avoid jail time”, he adds.
A client's permission to speak
9.20am Lawyers are generally precluded from testifying about conversations with their clients, due to professional privilege.
But Vince Muscat told the court that he was willing to waive that provision to Azzopardi, his former lawyer, to testify about discussions they had about a €1 million reward on offer for information about Caruana Galizia’s murder.
Muscat testified that he only heard about the reward from his lawyer and did not request the money.
Lead investigator Keith Arnaud also testified as much, recalling how Azzopardi had told him they intended to request the reward.
"What? For Vince? As if we'd give someone who killed a person a presidential pardon and one million,” Arnaud said he replied. Azzopardi allegedly responded: "So he retracts everything."
Arnaud told the court Muscat never asked for the reward and was only interested in securing a pardon in exchange for his testimony.
Arthur Azzopardi to testify
9.15am Today's court hearing has started, and lawyer Arthur Azzopardi will be the first witness.
What will Cardona say?
9.04am We're not mind readers, but given that Cardona has previously described Muscat's claims as "pure evil fiction", we imagine he will staunchly deny any involvement or knowledge of murder plots.
But there's also a chance the former minister won't even say a word.
When the judge granted the defence permission to summon him (and David Gatt) it noted two things:
- That it was “perplexed” that the defence was only raising concerns about the two now [rather than during the years-long compilation of evidence stage].
- That Cardona and Gatt were allowed not to answer questions when testifying if they fear self-incrimination.
Why is Cardona testifying?
8.50am Vince Muscat has claimed that in 2015 he was approached to be part of a team engaged to kill Daphne Caruana Galizia. He says he was told that Cardona was behind the plot and that he would sometimes drive his associates Alfred and George Degiorgio to meet with Cardona.
We’ve known for months that Cardona was likely to testify in this case.
Last February, Jamie Vella’s lawyer filed a court application making it clear he intended to call the former minister to the stand.
Lawyer Ishmael Psaila said the prosecution is being very selective with the testimony of its witness Vince Muscat and had “conveniently” focused its investigation on the four accused, rather than Cardona and his associate David Gatt.
Gatt is also expected to testify at some stage in this trial.
Welcome
8.45am Good morning and welcome to this live blog. We're reporting from the Valletta law courts.
We're more than one month into this trial. Prosecutors have presented their evidence and for the past week or so, it's been the defence's turn to make its case.
Yesterday, the court heard testimony from a legal procurator and police officer. Today, we will hear from Chris Cardona and Arthur Azzopardi.