The police have just eight months left to act on a criminal complaint Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family filed in 2019, and bring charges against Keith Schembri for breaching the Official Secrets Act and Secret Services Act.   

Failure to act within this time frame means the case becomes time-barred.

The Daphne Foundation yesterday referred to audio recordings played out in court when Yorgen Fenech told Schembri, after the journalist’s assassination, saying that he had commissioned the murder.

The recording quotes Fenech saying Schembri “went cold” and told him “you should have come to me before you did what you did”.

The foundation said this audio recording of Fenech speaking was seized by the police, and there were decrees by four magistrates.

Using his power as the prime minister’s chief of staff to acquire confidential information from the murder investigation, Schembri began leaking the information to Fenech “within a week” of Caruana Galizia’s death.

He did so “continually” and “in real time” for more than two years, according to Fenech’s sworn testimony.

Schembri’s leaks to Fenech, including information on progress made against the hitmen and bomb suppliers, delayed Fenech’s identification as the prime murder suspect, the foundation said.

It said that after Fenech was identified, Schembri informed him that his personal mobile number was tapped, delaying Fenech’s arrest for Daphne’s murder.

Schembri tried to help Fenech, the man he described in court as a “childhood friend” and who Fenech claimed would “step into the fire” for him, to get away with murder.

Fenech had asked Schembri about Melvin Theuma’s presidential pardon before it was granted and had even asked to see its draft terms. 

It was Fenech himself who drew the attention of the police to a photo of the draft terms of Theuma’s pardon on his mobile phone, claiming that Schembri had sent it to him, the foundation added.

Schembri’s multiple attempts to help Fenech evade arrest ultimately failed as the businessman stands charged with complicity in Daphne’s assassination, and his requests for a presidential pardon were rejected.

As the court stated in a judgment against Fenech last week, there are clear indications as to who is responsible for the leaks from the investigation into Daphne’s murder and enough evidence to arraign those responsible for the crime.

Each of Schembri’s attempts to help Fenech evade justice, it said, represented a criminal breach of Malta’s Official Secrets Act and Secret Services Act that carries a severe prison term.