Updated 6.10pm, adds police statement on his condition

Melvin Theuma, the critically injured star witness in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case, was on Thursday trying to communicate with relatives and hospital staff through eye movements and facial expressions.

The middleman in the journalist’s assassination, who was given a presidential pardon to reveal all he knows, was found with damaged vocal cords and multiple stab wounds in his Swieqi apartment on Tuesday night. Police say initial evidence shows the injuries were self-inflicted. 

Theuma was on Thursday reported to be stable but doctors believe the next few days are going to be a critical time in terms of his medical condition.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, the police said his condition remained "stable". They said he was still being kept at Mater Dei Hospital's Intensive Therapy Unit.

“The next week is going to be what determines whether he will pull through or not,” medical sources told Times of Malta.

Theuma was taken to hospital with multiple stab wounds in his abdomen and below the kidneys as well as a slit throat and cuts to his left wrist.

Medical sources say the injuries he sustained and the angles of the stab wounds seem to indicate self-harm. It will be the magisterial inquiry that determines whether this was the case, as well as the extent of the damage to his vocal cords.

Sources who have seen Theuma in his ITU bed at Mater Dei Hospital said he was wearing a neck brace and had pipes coming out of his wounds. He was moving his eyes and eyebrows and tried nodding and making a few movements with his hand as if he wanted to say something but was unable to.

Other sources said Theuma was given a pen and paper. It has not been ascertained whether he wrote anything down or if anyone could decipher what was written.

Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà gave a press conference on Wednesday about the case. He said they had found Theuma in the main bedroom of his Swieqi apartment holding a knife in his right hand at 9.30pm the previous day.

Sometime earlier, Theuma’s lawyer Kathleen Grima had called lead investigator Keith Arnaud to inform him that she was unable to get through to her client.

Arnaud then contacted the police stationed outside the Swieqi apartment block on Triq is-Sirk to provide Theuma with close protection. At that time, Theuma’s partner was returning home with their son and her mother, who lives with them.

That was when Theuma was found with critical injuries.

The incident happened hours before he was due to appear in court to be confronted with evidence which the defence in the murder case argue sheds doubts over his credibility.

Theuma’s testimony and secret recordings of conversations he had with people allegedly involved in the murder plot have been described by police sources as crucial to the case against Yorgen Fenech, the businessman accused of the conspiracy to kill Caruana Galizia.