A day after inspector Keith Arnaud testified in the compilation of evidence against Yorgen Fenech, charged as an accomplice in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder, the businessman’s lawyers have filed an application deploring the “almost amateurish” handling of investigations in respect of Keith Schembri.

The application was filed on Friday before the First Hall, Civil Court presided over by Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, who is currently hearing the case brought by Mr Fenech to have Keith Arnaud removed from the investigations, the key argument being the Inspector’s allegedly close friendship with the former chief of staff.

During the compilation proceedings on Thursday, Arnaud’s three-hour long testimony brought to light not only the “incredible” fact regarding Mr Schembri’s lost mobile phone but also revealed the “careless, rough, [approssimattiv], if not amateurish manner” in which investigations against Mr Schembri had been handled. 

To cite just one example, the lead investigator declared that “he was not aware of the almost intimate friendship between Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri,” although such a fact had been “clearly declared” by the middleman, Melvin Theuma.

Such facts that emerged on Thursday and were formerly unknown to Mr Fenech, were “highly relevant,” argued his lawyers, pointing out that Mr Schembri had, until recently occupied the post of chief of staff at the Prime Minister’s Office and was, possibly, “the mastermind” behind this crime. 

In the light of such new reality, the applicant called upon the court for permission to file a copy of Insp. Arnaud’s testimony in the records of the constitutional case before Mr Justice Mintoff.

The application was filed against the Police Commissioner, the Attorney General, the Minister for Home Affairs and National Security and Insp. Arnaud. 

Lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran and Marion Camilleri signed the application.