Criminal proceedings concerning Melvin Theuma’s phantom job appear to have reached a status quo with police saying that they have no further evidence as Attorney General lawyers have yet to make their position known.

When the case continued on Tuesday, the prosecuting inspectors confirmed what they had already stated in previous sittings, namely that they had no further evidence to put forward. 

But they had still not received any reply from the Attorney General after the last sitting earlier this month when the prosecution could not rest its case because lawyers from the state prosecutor’s office had not yet checked testimonies to confirm if more evidence was to be compiled. 

This meant that the position of five men facing criminal action over the government messenger-driver job given to Theuma just five months before the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia remained unchanged after Tuesday’s hearing. 

These are former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, former head of customer care at OPM Sandro Craus, former family ministry secretary Anthony Mario Ellul, and Anthony Muscat, former CEO at Housing Maintenance and Embellishment Company Ltd, the state-owned company which employed Theuma.

All four, together with businessman Yorgen Fenech, are pleading not guilty to theft and misappropriation charges stemming from the job whereby Theuma, who later surfaced as the self-confessed middleman in the journalist’s assassination, ended on the government payroll. 

During the previous sitting, the court had sent out a clear warning to the prosecution, saying that such behaviour “was not acceptable”.

When faced with the unchanged scenario on Tuesday, Magistrate Monica Vella declared that the court would take provisions in respect of such shortcoming at a later stage. 

The records of the case were sent back to the AG and the case was deferred to next month. 

Inspectors Nicholas Vella and Brian Paul Camilleri prosecuted. Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo are counsel to Schembri. Lawyers Charles Mercieca, Gianluca Caruana Curran and Marion Camilleri are counsel to Fenech. Lawyer Stefano Filletti is counsel to Muscat. Lawyers Michael Sciriha and Roberto Spiteri are counsel to Craus. Lawyers Vince Micallef and Jacob Portelli are counsel to Ellul.