Keith Schembri takes the witness stand in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case
The ex-OPM chief of staff was implicated in the assassination by Yorgen Fenech.
Keith Schembri, a top former government official, has been called to testify in the murder trial against Yorgen Fenech.
You can follow his testimony here.
Schembri, a key power broker in Joseph Muscat's government, was implicated in the October 2017 car bombing by Fenech.
The pair, who once described themselves as "close friends", fell out upon Fenech's arrest in November 2019.
Fenech claims Schembri promised him a presidential pardon after his arrest, and even authored a "script" to pin the journalist's murder on ex-minister Chris Cardona.
The Tumas businessman, who has been charged with complicity in the murder, claimed it was Muscat's former chief of staff who wanted Caruana Galizia dead.
Schembri denies the claim.
The former chief of staff was briefly arrested and questioned in November 2019 about the claims, but was ultimately released without charge.
A separate probe led to Schembri being charged with perjury and breaches of the Official Secrets Act
Apart from Fenech's claim that Schembri was the murder mastermind, the businessman also claimed Schembri leaked details about the murder investigation to him.
Schembri said he “lost” his phone prior to his arrest in November 2019, depriving investigators of potential evidence.
Prosecutors have detailed in the leaks case how Schembri alerted Fenech that Vince Muscat, one of the hitmen involved in Caruana Galizia’s murder, was cooperating with police.
Inspector Shaun Friggieri told the court how, during a meeting, Fenech informed murder middleman Melvin Theuma that Muscat had started speaking to investigators.
The police obtained this information thanks to secret recordings of the conversation taken by Theuma.
Shortly before the meeting with Fenech and Theuma, the police found that Schembri had called the alleged murder mastermind’s mobile phone from his landline.
The prosecution in the leaks case argued that Schembri was the only person who would have known about Muscat’s bid for a pardon, as arranging a meeting with the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) to discuss the pardon required his involvement.
According to separate testimony in the trial against Fenech, the Degiorgio brothers discovered Muscat was speaking to the police a day after the April 2018 OPM meeting.
‘Confi messages’
Investigations in the leaks case also found WhatsApp chats that showed Schembri and Fenech were continuously messaging from January 2019 until the businessman was arrested in November 2019.
They were also communicating before this period, but Fenech’s phone was stolen.
During this period, Schembri used the code word “confi” twice when he sent something confidential.
Once, in January 2019, Schembri sent a court decree that had not yet been released. A month later, in February 2019, Schembri sent an internal police email to Fenech.
Investigations also found that Schembri and Fenech were communicating on a messaging app called Signal, which had a setting that would allow messages to disappear after a certain number of hours. WhatsApp now also has this function, but not during 2019.
After reviewing Fenech’s phone, the police found that Fenech changed the disappearing messaging settings around 13 times. There were also 149 tentative calls on Signal.
Kenneth Camilleri, a former bodyguard to Joseph Muscat, has emerged as a key witness in the leaks case.
Camilleri has testified that he was instructed by Schembri to meet Theuma, who then repeatedly asked Camilleri for updates on whether the Degiorgio brothers would be released on bail.
When Camilleri informed the then prime minister about this, Muscat replied, “I’d rather not know about this,” according to the former bodyguard’s testimony in the leaks case.
In previous sittings, the court overseeing the leaks case heard how Schembri was in possession of a confidential internal police email.
Although the email had nothing to do with Caruana Galizia’s murder, the prosecution wanted to show how Schembri had access to information that he should never have had access to and shared it with Fenech.