A court has found no  “offensive or insulting” terms in an application filed by the Attorney General calling for investigations into the recent leak of secretly recorded conversations between Yorgen Fenech and Melvin Theuma.

The issue stemmed from the publication on Reddit of five clips of exchanges between the businessman, charged with complicity in the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma.

The voice recordings, uploaded through an anonymous account created on August 8, were among those heard behind closed doors in the ongoing murder compilation, during a sitting on July 22.

The leak had prompted an application by the Attorney General calling for urgent investigations. A similar application was filed by the Caruana Galizia family.

The matter elicited a strongly-worded statement by the court during last week’s sitting, whereby Magistrate Rachel Montebello declared such leaks as condemnable and a direct affront to court authority. The magistrate ordered the police commissioner to investigate such leaks and further instructed the court registrar to take all necessary action for contempt of court.

During that same sitting, Fenech’s lawyers filed written submissions and made further oral arguments, voicing preoccupation about the fact that the prosecution, whilst urging investigations into the leaks, had failed to look into other “far more serious allegations.”

"How is Arnaud mentioned in these tapes? How often? In what context? How did Theuma get hold of certain documents? How much money was truly exchanged for this murder? Were there any urgent investigations about all these matters? No. And yet there was urgent investigation about the leaked tapes in contempt of court,” lawyer Charles Mercieca had argued.

Fenech’s lawyers had also taken objection to certain “offensive or insulting” language in their regard, allegedly featuring in the AG’s application, stating that such terms amounted to contempt of court.

Yet the court concluded that, after a close reading of the text at issue, it had found no such terms which could be described as “offensive or insulting” in such manner as amounting to contempt of court.

The prohibition did not apply to any allegations which could be considered objectionable from the subjective viewpoint of the party against whom they are directed, the court said.