The self-confessed middleman in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case has applied for the State to be added as a defendant in an action for damages by the assassinated journalist's family. 

Melvin Theuma filed the application on Monday, days after a public inquiry found that the State should shoulder the responsiblity for the October 2017 murder. 

It asks that the State, as represented by the Prime Minister, the State Advocate, the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner should be joined in the suit. 

If the application is successful, it could mean that the State might pay the full amount of damages liquidated by the court in favour of the family.

The State would then have the right to turn upon each of the other defendants to recover his share in those damages.

Seeking compensation

Last year the Caruana Galizia family filed an action seeking compensation for moral and material damages against business tycoon Yorgen Fenech, accused of complicity in the murder plot, alleged hitmen George and Alfred Degiorgio together with self-confessed hitman Vincent Muscat as well as Theuma, who admitted his middleman role in the plot.

Theuma was granted a pardon for his role in exchange for vital testimony as star witness for the prosecution in criminal proceedings against the other suspects in the assassination plot. 

The victim’s husband, Peter, together with the couple’s sons, Matthew, Andrew and Paul, had instituted the civil action for damages in October 2020, several months before the public inquiry had been concluded. 

Theuma's lawyers argue that, not knowing what the outcome of that inquiry would be, the family obviously could not include the State among the defendants in the suit.

They argue that since the inquiry declared that the State should bear responsibility for the assassination, then the State, should be joined in the suit. 

For this reason, Theuma’s lawyers asked the court, presided over by Madam Justice Anna Felice, to appoint the case for hearing so that the parties might put forward their arguments and evidence in support of this request.

If the request were to be upheld, the State would for all purposes be considered as a defendant and hence entitled to file written pleadings, raise any plea and avail itself of any other benefit allowed to other defendants, whilst being held jointly and severally liable in damages. 

Lawyers Matthew Brincat and Kathleen Calleja Grima signed the application.