Data from Keith Schembri's mobile phone is still subject to an ongoing magisterial inquiry that is secret and confidential in terms of law, the police commissioner said in court on Monday, but that phone is not the same one allegedly "lost" some months ago.

Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff had ordered that phone data be divulged in constitutional proceedings filed by Yorgen Fenech to have lead investigator Keith Arnaud kicked off the investigation into the 2017 car bomb explosion that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The police commissioner informed the court that the device referred to, not the same one allegedly lost, was the subject of a magisterial inquiry that was still ongoing and that was secret and confidential in terms of law.

The Criminal Code lays down that the contents of magisterial inquiries cannot be made public so as not to prejudice ongoing investigations and proceedings.

In terms of procedural law, the proces verbal or any documents forming part of that inquiry can only be exhibited and copies issued at the sole discretion of the Attorney General once the records were deposited in the court registry.

Fenech could not bypass that rule, argued the police commissioner, citing a decree by the same Judge rejecting a request for the AG to present a copy of the proces verbal when a similar issue cropped up in separate proceedings filed by lawyer Paul Borg Olivier over the migrants’ pushback case.

The police commissioner thus called upon the court to revoke its decree ordering information about Schembri’s phone data to be divulged in the present proceedings.

Last month, Fenech, currently awaiting trial over his alleged complicity in the assassination, claimed that the police had full data extracted from the mobile phone of the former OPM chief of staff, without specifying whether that device was the same one Schembri claimed to have ‘lost.’

Such data was “essential” to Fenech’s case, claimed the businessman’s lawyers, thus requesting the court to order such data to be exhibited by the police.

The police commissioner countered that Fenech’s claim was an attempted “fishing expedition” aimed simply at prolonging the proceedings.

However, Mr Justice Mintoff observed that Schembri’s phone had often featured in testimonies, with witnesses claiming it was lost and could not be traced by police.

The court decreed that the police commissioner is to declare what data the police possess, how and when it was obtained and what time frame such data related to.

Likewise, Fenech’s lawyers were told to specify what “certain and precise” proof they were after and how such information could prove relevant to the applicant’s case.

The police commissioner’s application was signed by State Advocate Chris Soler and lawyer Maurizio Cordina.