Two of the men who allegedly planted the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia were back in court on Wednesday for a hearing on further preliminary pleas ahead of the upcoming murder trial.

Having already filed over 100 pre-trial pleas last year, Alfred and George Degiorgio’s lawyer raised additional pleas concerning witnesses and evidence which came to light when the bill of indictment had already been issued by the Attorney General.

In a judgment delivered in September, the Court of Appeal almost confirmed in its entirety a decision by the Criminal Court rejecting all the Degiorgios’ pleas, but upheld one objection concerning testimony given by lead prosecutor Superintendent Keith Arnaud.

When testifying at the murder compilation, Arnaud had referred to information obtained through the tapping of George Degiorgio’s phone without, however, exhibiting the warrant authorising those phone intercepts.

Consequently, the Court of Appeal ordered the removal of that part of Arnaud’s testimony and any reference thereto at the upcoming trial.

Now the Degiorgios are requesting the Criminal Court, presided over by Madam Justice Edwina Grima, to strike off the testimony by the so-called “new witness,” self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma.

The testimonies of certain witnesses authorised to testify by the court in December 2019 were also objected to by the Degiorgios through their lawyer William Cuschieri.

He argued that although the legislator had granted the court the power to summon ex-officio any witnesses as the need arose, in this case the court had assumed the functions of prosecutor by summoning witnesses against the accused, he said, claiming that the situation breached the accused’s right to a fair hearing.

Likewise, secret recordings allegedly made by Theuma that were not partly or wholly played out to that witness who could, therefore, not confirm their contents on oath, should also be removed.

At no point in the proceedings was Theuma asked to confirm the contents of those recordings “from start to finish,” the lawyer said. 

Reports prepared by an IT expert who was tasked to carry out optimisation of those tapes were also to be removed, together with transcripts of recordings presented in court in January, he said.

Finally, three court officials who transcribed those records were not to be allowed to testify since their names had not been added to the list of prosecution witnesses, the Degiorgios’ lawyer said.

Replying, deputy attorney general Philip Galea Farrugia said that referring to Melvin Theuma as a “new witness” seemed to imply that the prosecution had “capriciously” failed to produce him as a witness, when in reality that was not the case.

The bill of indictment was issued in July 2019, Theuma was arrested on November 14, 2019 and was granted a presidential pardon days later on November 25, he pointed out.

That was when Theuma became a compellable witness and that same day the Attorney General had filed an application before the Criminal Court to include the middleman on the prosecution’s witness list.

Moreover, the legislator granted the court further powers to do “whatever it may, in its discretion, deem necessary for the discovery of the truth.”

This meant that the court could summon any witnesses deemed necessary not only against but also in favour of the accused, pointed out Galea Farrugia.

As for the recordings objected to by the Degiorgios, all recordings would be played out at the trial and the jurors would also be furnished with copies of the transcripts to follow, argued the prosecutor.

He explained that the Magistrates’ Court responsible for the compilation of evidence was not expected to hear all evidence “from A to Z” but to make sure that all evidence was gathered and preserved.

The experts tasked with transcribing those recordings that emerged later could not have been included in the original list, said Galea Farrugia, requesting the court to include them at this stage.

After all, these were “administrative” witnesses who would not testify on the merits of the case but only about the task assigned to them, he said. 

Madam Justice Grima said that a decision would be delivered next month.

Request for constitutional reference rejected

Meanwhile, at the start of Wednesday's hearing, the court delivered a decree rejecting a request for a constitutional reference filed by the Degiorgios in September.

Citing extensively a judgement delivered by the Constitutional Court last month, Madam Justice Grima concluded that the claims raised by the Degiorgios in their request for the reference had already been tackled and decided in that judgment.

Lawyer Jason Azzopardi represented the Caruana Galizia family.