Updated 3.15pm

Joseph Muscat’s iPhone was reset weeks before police raided his home and seized it, a court heard on Wednesday.

The former prime minister also ran Google searches on how to erase iPhone data and how to delete backups of WhatsApp chats, court expert Keith Cutajar told the court.

Cutajar presented a report into Muscat’s devices as part of a criminal case against him.

Muscat and others face charges of money laundering, corruption, and bribery in connection with the fraudulent hospitals’ deal. All defendants are pleading not guilty.

Investigators outside Muscat's home in January 2022. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Muscat’s phone was reset on December 28, 2021, information retrieved from the device suggests. The Muscat family home in Burmarrad was searched on January 19, three weeks later.

Muscat handed investigators who showed up a file full of documents he had prepared and told Times of Malta he was only “half surprised” by the police search.

The former politician had refused to give investigators his phone password and in November a court heard that it would take almost a year to unlock the device.

The software finally obtained access after attempting the PIN 227488, Cutajar revealed on Wednesday. But when the court expert went to examine the phone’s contents, he discovered that it had been wiped clean.

The expert explained that the mobile’s primary activity was on December 28, 2021, just three weeks before Muscat’s house was searched.

35GB of data retrieved

“There is no live data before that date [December 28, 2021] because of data wiping,” Cutajar said, adding that this meant that someone had manually pressed the factory reset button on the phone.

Using data mining and recovery software, the expert managed to extract 35GB of data from the 128GB iPhone. This is the maximum amount which can be extracted by the software used, Cutajar said.

Cutajar explained that a lot of data found in the report is of correspondence sent from Muscat's phone to third parties. Such data is hardcoded on the chip and can be retrieved through data recovery processes.

Incoming data - information received by Muscat's phone - is cached data and is not saved on the microchip, Cutajar added. 

“There is not even a month of activity,” the expert said.

Data wiping on iPhone 11 (the model Muscat had) has to be started by a user who has access to the username, password and iCloud access.

“It is a manual thing, one has to select factory reset and the data is wiped and the phone is like new,” Cutajar added.

Muscat's Google search history was among the data that the expert was able to recover. 

That revealed Muscat had searched for how to erase an iPhone and how to delete backup chats on WhatsApp.

Following a question by prosecutor Rebecca Spiteri, Cutajar told the court that data recovery is done either by finding traces of data, or else through a process known as “carving”.

Carving uses Artificial Intelligence algorithms to piece together bits of information and then interpret them.  

“The phone’s activity dates back to two or three years before that,” Cutajar said, adding that this emerged from some of the photos, email extracts found through the data recovery process. This information is in ‘extracts’ because the chip would be overwritten, and it would not be in full.

Muscat lawyer presses on Azzopardi calls

During cross-examination, Muscat’s lawyer Vince Galea asked the witness whether he spoke to lawyer Jason Azzopardi.

“Did he [Jason Azzopardi] call you?”

“He had called me before the searches. I did not take his calls. This is documented elsewhere,” Cutajar replied, alluding to previous testimony in the case.

Cutajar said he immediately informed inquiring magistrate Gabriella Vella about Azzopardi's calls and messages. A meeting was then held at the Financial Crimes Investigation Department Offices in Santa Venera.

He showed Azzopardi’s messages to the magistrate, who confirmed that the number belonged to the lawyer. Cutajar said the magistrate instructed him not to reply to Azzopardi.

Galea continued to press the witness, asking how Azzopardi had sought to contact him. Cutajar said Azzopardi tried to call him through the encrypted messaging app Signal. The defence lawyer asked him to check his phone for those messages.

“It’s empty,” Cutajar said as he showed the phone in court, explaining that Signal was set to auto-delete messages after a period of time. 

“If I recall correctly, he [Azzopardi] had told me that ‘I need to speak to you’. I was aware of the searches and the date had to be changed,” Cutajar said.

Defence wants unrelated data omitted

After the witness testified, Muscat’s lawyer asked the court to omit any private data unrelated to proceedings from the case records.

“If my client messaged his daughter ‘good morning,’ there is no need for this to be in the records of the case,” Galea argued. He also asked for extracted data to not be given to parties in the case until its contents are verified.

“During Muscat’s time as prime minister, a similar issue had cropped up concerning a journalist’s phone. If a journalist had that exemption, the prime minister of the country should benefit from it too,” Galea argued, saying that there would be several things on his phone not related to the case.

The court underlined that Muscat’s position was not the same as that of a journalist, and that there was no comparison to be made. It said it would rule on the request at a later date.

Prosecutor Rebecca Spiteri observed that Muscat's co-accused had not been afforded that same treatment, saying she could not understand why in Muscat’s case it should be any different.

Defence lawyer Giannella De Marco asked who would decide what is or is not relevant to the case.

“We have no interest in messages sent between Muscat and his wife or his children, but what about messages between co-accused?” De Marco asked.

Defence lawyer Stefano Filletti said he could not understand why the extraction was happening at this stage, claiming that the prosecution was embarking on a “fishing expedition”.

Prosecutor Rebecca Spiteri observed that Muscat was no longer prime minister when the extraction happened and there would therefore be no security issues. She added that there were other individuals who are yet to be charged in connection with the hospitals inquiry.

Galea counterargued that when one is no longer in a position it does not mean that conversations stop abruptly.

“You cannot come here and throw everything inside the court as though it is a skip. The prosecution should bring forward only evidence which is relevant to the charges,” Galea said.

“Had the inquiring magistrate wanted the full picture, she could have waited for the extraction to be completed and then closed the file,” Filletti chimed in, adding that the Attorney General could always study the file and send the inquiry back if they were not convinced.

The prosecution also filed an application for foreign experts in the case to testify via a ‘letter rogatory’ – a formal request for assistance sent to a foreign court asking it to act as proxy to hear testimony from a witness or expert.

Prosecutor Spiteri said the prosecution is asking for the experts to be heard before a foreign court and the sitting to be transmitted to Malta via video link.

The defence was given until 15 April to file in their replies in writing.

They will then make their submissions on 7 May.

Magistrate Rachel Montebello presided over the case.

Muscat's legal team is made up of lawyers Vince Galea, Luke Dalli, Charlon Gouder, Ishmael Psaila and Etienne Borg Ferranti. 

Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri, Arthur Azzopardi, Giannella de Marco, Stephen Tonna Lowell, Charles Mercieca, Edward Gatt, Mark Vassallo, Stefano Filletti, Jason Grima, Arthur Azzopardi, Sean Zammit, Veronique Dalli, Dean Hili, Andre Portelli, Shazoo Ghaznavi, Alex Scerri Herrera, and Jessica Formosa represented other defendants. 

Lawyers Francesco Refalo, Shelby Aquilina and Rebecca Spiteri prosecuted on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office, assisted by inspector Wayne Rodney Borg.

Correction April 2, 2025: A previous version stated that unrelated data will be omitted from the court records. The court has yet to rule on that point.