Updated 1.30pm

Daphne Caruana Galizia's alleged murderers were back in court on Monday morning as the compilation of evidence against them continued. 

Here's a summary of the hearing's key testimonies: 

• Europol experts accompanied local police on all key searches of the homes of the three accused homes as well as sites of interest, such as the Marsa shed where they were arrested. Local officers assigned knew little about these foreign specialists - "we called him Mr Israel," one said about one particular expert.  
• According to the testimony of AFM officials standing guard at the Bidnija crime scene, a Dutch investigator took charge of coordinating searches of the crime scene. 
• Alfred Degiorgio had introduced himself as 'Roger' to a man he met in Ħamrun in the days following the bombing. The two had swapped numbers and met in a Xlendi hotel room for 15 minutes in November. Prosecuting inspector Arnaud told the court that what happened during that meeting was not relevant to the case. 
• A man who was among the first to witness the Bidnija bomb scene said that Ms Caruana Galizia's son Matthew was convinced he had been snapping photos of the scene with his phone. The man said Mr Caruana Galizia smashed the phone to the ground when he handed it to him, saying "see for yourself."
  

  The trial will now resume on April 12. A minute-by-minute account of what happened in court follows below.

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1.02pm The case has been adjourned until April 12. 

1pm The court orders that the lawyers' statement be sent to the director of prisons. 

12.57pm Defence lawyers tell the court that when they visited their clients last week for a joint visit, they were told that they had to speak to their respective clients separately. 

They want the court to help them sort this out - we work as a team, they tell magistrate Stafrace Zammit, as they formally declare that they have no problem if the three accused meet with defence lawyers when one of them is not present.  

12.54pm Prosecutors say they have no further witnesses to present today. 

12.52pm A third EOD official tells the court the same things his colleagues have, and then steps down. 

12.48pm Mr Zahra steps down, and another colleague of his at the AFM's EOD unit takes his place on the witness stand. 

He echoes much of what Mr Zahra told the court - that firefighters were putting out the flames once they arrived, that they were ordered to keep watch and that on October 18 they searched parts of the site, with a Dutch investigator seemingly in charge. 

12.42pm When a Dutch crime scene expert was brought to the scene, he partitioned the site into various sections and assigned each of the sections to a different search party. 

Mr Zahra says they found several items and handed everything over to the Dutch investigator, whose name he does not know. 

Mr Zahra says he was assigned search duties on October 18, with search parties working until nightfall. 

12.40pm Mr Zahra and his colleagues were given orders to stand guard at the site throughout the night. They set up a roster  - "My turn was between 2am and 4am," he explains - and kept watch. 

They had been ordered not to touch anything as foreign experts were arriving. 

12.37pm He got to the bomb scene at around 3.20pm that day, some 10 minutes after he received the call for assistance in Mosta. 

Firefighters were already there putting out the flames, he says, and the AFM team went about securing the area and checking for any secondary explosives. 

12.35pm  Antoine Zahra from the AFM's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit  takes the witness stand. 

12.30pm Another CPD officer also on the scene tells the court that he was told not to use too much water when extinguishing the fire, to ensure evidence was preserved. 

12.26pm Alan Cutajar from the Civil Protection Department is testifying. He was on duty that day and rushed to the Bidnija site from Xemxija. 

Once there, he was instructed to put out grass that was on fire. He returned to the site on October 19 to clear the road.  

12.21pm Inspector Mercieca says he did not know the name of the Europol officer, who held on to a mobile phone belonging to Mr Muscat's daughter which was confiscated in Msida. 

The inspector says that he had been stationed at Siġġiewi, but moved to Msida since there was no inspector in charge of the scene there. 

12.14pm Inspector Joseph Mercieca, who arrested Vincent Muscat, takes the witness stand.  

He tells the court that he went to Siġġiewi, where Mr Muscat was said to be living. There he found Mrs Muscat, who said her husband was not there. 

A forensic expert and a Europol agent were there with him, and they waited there until evening. They searched the house and confiscated some computer parts. 

Inspector Mercieca tells the court that that evening, they accompanied Mr Muscat to Msida,  where they towed his Toyota. It remains unclear where Mr Muscat was arrested. 

12.12pm The court hearing has resumed. 

12pm Eight more witnesses are expected to testify today, we’re being told.
Many of those are police officers, one is an inspector and another is a civilian.

11.47am We've heard from several witnesses so far. Among the main points:  

• Local police were accompanied by foreign officers during their various searches. Most were identified as working with Europol, and one was simply referred to by officers as "Mr Israel".
• Ms Caruana Galizia's son Matthew was convinced that a man who was among the first to arrive at the bomb scene had taken photos of the blazing car with his phone. The man said Mr Caruana Galizia smashed the phone to the ground when it was handed to him. 
• Alfred Degiorgio had introduced himself as 'Roger' to a man he met in Ħamrun in the days following the bombing. The two had swapped numbers and met in a Xlendi hotel room for 15 minutes in November. 

11.45am The court has called a five-minute recess. 

11.42am Defence lawyer Martin Fenech again homes in on the search warrant. "Did you see the search warrant?" he asks the officer. "Yes," she replies. "I don't know if it was shown to the accused." 

A foreign officer from Europol was also present for the search, she adds, though she does not know his name. 

11.34am Another officer involved in the December 4 operations rises to testify - we missed her name.  

She too was briefed in the early hours of that morning and told to keep watch over Mr Muscat's residence in Msida. She was there by 6am, and officers had a search and arrest warrant, she tells the court.  

Around 12 hours later, at 6pm, Mr Muscat's daughter showed up. She told officers she wanted to tend to the dog inside, and police let her in.

At around 6.30pm, inspector Mercieca showed up with Mr Muscat, to carry out a search of his home. The witness waited outside with Mr Muscat's daughter while the search was underway. 

Once that was done, they all headed to the parked brown Toyota. Mr Muscat said he did not have keys, and officers towed the vehicle away. 

11.30am PC Sergio Spiteri was one of the officers responsible for arresting Vincent Muscat, il-Koħħu. 

He tells the court how on December 4, he had been sent to Msida at 8am with two other officers. Mr Muscat's residence was closed, and nobody answered when they knocked.

The officers then received a call about a Toyota Passo parked at Msida front. It was locked and nobody was there. 

Later that day, at 6pm, inspector Joseph Mercieca arrived with Vincent Muscat. The Toyota - his car - was towed in his presence and taken to the police depot.  

11.28am Defence lawyers ask about search warrants, and that prompts an objection from Inspector Arnaud, who says all search warrants were in order and had already been presented as part of the proces verbal. 

Inspector Arnaud is also not happy about questions about the "Mr Israel" who accompanied officers during the searches. 

11.26am As part of the search in Żabbar, officers found a variety of SIM cards and some photographic equipment. 

They also searched the house of Miguel Caruana's parents in Marsascala the following day, officer Borg says, with police keeping an eye on the house overnight. 

11.25am Mr Caruana worked for GO and was "fishing buddies" with one of the accused, the court had heard during a previous sitting.

11.20am Officer Oliver Borg, who works with the police drug squad, takes the stand. 

He recalls how on December 4, at 4am, he had received detailed instructions. At 7am that day he went to the house of Miguel Caruana from Marsascala. From there he headed to Caruana's partner's house in Żabbar.

Later that day, other officers showed up with Mr Caruana and carried out a search of the Żabbar residence. They had a foreigner with them, who they referred to as "Israel", constable Borg tells the court.  

11.17am Paramedic Francis Meilaq - their actual title is emergency ambulance respondent - was also in the ambulance that day.  He says that all he could see at the scene was a big cloud of smoke. 

At one stage, he helped Dr Spiteri cover something with a sheet - "I did not realise what it was at that point." 

11.14am A paramedic working that day takes the witness stand. 

They say they arrived on site by ambulance at 3.16pm. Firefighters were trying to put out the fire. Dr Spiteri told them not to approach until the danger had been controlled. 

11.11am Dr Spiteri certified the victim dead at 3.30pm. He reads from the death certificate. 

11.06am Mater Dei Hospital consultant Michael Spiteri is next to testify. 

He says that at 3.04pm on the day of the bombing, he received a call saying there may have been a car bomb explosion in Bidnija. He went there at once and found two areas on fire. 

Police told him that a victim was probably inside the car. 

The doctor, Dr Spiteri, gave instructions for the ambulance to move back to a safe distance. Once the fire was extinguished, he approached the car and confirmed that a victim had died inside.  

11.03am Correction - the witness obtained footage from about 10 homes, but he himself only saw footage from one. 

10.59am The constable is being cross-examined. Defence lawyers ask whether the resident had made any observations about the driver of the white car. "No," the witness replies.

He says he got CDs with CCTV footage going back around three days  from around 10 homes. The white car did not appear anywhere in the footage 

10.57am PC Dimech was also one of the officers present during the search of the Marsa potato shed. "I kept watch over George Degiorgio," he tells the court. 

He also remembers the glass of water incident mentioned by a previous witness, he adds. 

10.52am Police constable Duncan Dimech takes the witness stand. 

He tells the court that on October 17 - the day after Ms Caruana Galizia was murdered - he was looking into CCTV footage in Bidnija which could help shed light on people's comings and goings.

A resident told him that they had noticed a white car in the upper part of Bidnija, close to the L-Għarusa tal-Mosta garden. The car's number plate ended 'QZ', the resident said. 

PC Dimech searched the site, and found a cigarette butt next to a rock. It seemed relatively fresh, he tells the court. He kept watch until forensic investigators lifted it from the scene. 

10.45am Mr Marsela tells the court how one Monday he had received a call from a mechanic at around 8am. He told him that somebody had posted their car keys in his [Mr Marsela's] garage letterbox by mistake. 

Mr Marsela went to the garage later that day, at around 5pm, and found the mechanic and other people there. He fetched the key and handed it to the mechanic - "his name was Jesmond," he recalls.  

The garage does not belong to him, Mr Marsela explains. It is used a store and rented by his boss. He and his boss have keys to open the garage. Mr Marsela is done testifying. 

10.42am Next up on the witness stand is Drilon Marsela, an Albanian man who lives in Malta. 

Mr Marsela tells the court that he was contacted by police in relation to a garage in Mrieħel. After receiving a call from police, he went to Valletta to speak to them. 

In an earlier sitting, the court heard how Ms Caruana Galizia's car had been taken to an Mrieħel panel beater to be fixed - but that the car keys had been posted in the wrong letterbox. 

10.39am We searched the site on December 5 under warrant, the witness says. 

Defence lawyer Martin Fenech interjects - "Did you see the search warrant?" he asks. 

The witness says he did not, but that Inspector Arnaud had given them the order to search the site. 

10.35am The officer says he found a fish finder in one of the accused's cars, a BMW. Police divers recovered seven mobile phones from the sea floor, he says. 

He returned to the Marsa potato shed the following day with accused George Degiorgio. There, he took five photos of the scene - among them photos of earphones at the scene, of an iron window and of an aluminium lock. 

At one point, Mr Degiorgio had asked for water to drink. The officer handed him a glass, to which the accused had replied "not that one". The witness says he thought this was worth noting, given that Mr Degiorgio had claimed that he did not use the place himself. 

10.32am And with none of us any the wiser about the links between Mr Portelli and Mr Degiorgio, or how they got from a chocolate festival to a Xlendi hotel room, we move on to the next witness - a police officer who took part in the Marsa raids during which the three accused were arrested. 

10.29am The magistrate asks why the man's name should remain secret. Inspector Arnaud replies, somewhat cryptically, that whatever happened in the hotel room was of no relevance to the case and that the man's name and place of work should remain secret. 

But magistrate Stafrace Zammit doesn't buy that. The witness was Anthony Portelli, who works at Enemalta.  

10.24am The man points to Alfred Degiorgio and says they had met on October 25 at the Ħamrun chocolate festival. Mr Degiorgio had introduced himself as 'Roger', the witness says, and the two had swapped phone numbers. 

In November, 'Roger' had called him and told him he was in Xlendi. They met there, at a hotel Mr Degiorgio was staying at. The two men sat inside the accused's hotel room, which was on the first floor, and spoke for about 15 minutes. After that, he left and the two had no further contact. 

10.20am The next witness to testify will remain anonymous, with prosecutors asking to ban publication of his name.

10.15am Mr Vella says he thought he should leave the scene, and he called two relatives advising them to avoid the route. 

As he got into his car to leave, the young man - Ms Caruana Galizia's son Matthew - came up to him and told him, in English, that he [Mr Vella] had taken photos. 

Mr Vella says he handed his phone to police for them to look through. They handed it back, but Mr Caruana Galizia kept insisting he had taken photos. 

"See for yourself," Mr Vella says he told the victim's son as he handed him the phone. Mr Caruana Galizia then smashed the phone to the ground, Mr Vella says. 

10.13am Within 10 to 15 minutes, he was at the scene. Ms Caruana Galizia's car was still burning, and there was a young man at the scene. Mr Vella tells the court that at that stage, he still had no idea of what had happened. 

10.10am Bidnija resident Mario Vella is the next person to take the stand. He tells the court that he was at an ironmongery in Mosta that October day, when his daughter called him at around 2.50pm to tell him there was a fire close to the farmhouse he was refurbishing. 

10.05am Assistant commissioner Martin Sammut takes the stand. He was among the police officers who tried to put out the fire that engulfed Ms Caruana Galizia's car following the bomb blast. 

10.04am The court receives a report containing the statements made by the accused men from Yanica Camilleri, a lawyer responsible for transcribing them. 

There's probably not all that much for the court to read - sources had told Times of Malta that the three accused remained tight-lipped throughout. 

10.01am Back to Inspector Pulis. There were six people involved in the search of Alfred Degiorgio's apartment. The suspect saw everything that was going on. And with that, the inspector steps down. 

10am The mystery man was with Europol, Inspector Keith Arnaud interjects. 

9.57am Inspector Pulis tells the court he doesn't know who the foreign expert was, or what his name was. "I wasn't responsible for dealing with them," he says. "I'm just testifying about what I personally saw." 

9.55am Officers entered the apartment using a key, the Inspector clarifies. Inside, they found some "electronic equipment" and €4,000 hidden behind a picture frame.

A "foreign expert" was there throughout the search, watching the local forensics team as they worked at the site, the inspector says. 

9.52am On December 4 - the day police raided several locations and arrested 10 people, including the 10 suspects - Inspector Vella had a team of men surrounding Alfred Degiorgio's flat in St Paul's Bay. 

After Degiorgio was arrested [in Marsa], he was escorted to the apartment and CID and forensic experts began to comb through it. 

9.48am Inspector Nicholas Vella tells the court he has nothing to add to his previous testimony [in which he described arriving at the scene shortly after the bomb went off]. 

Now it's Inspector Kevin Pulis who rises to testify. Inspector Pulis works with the police's drug squad. 

9.41am The accused are now in the dock. Security is tight - four SRT officials are sitting right behind them. 

9.37am The three accused men have not appeared in court together in almost a month, though one - Alfred Degiorgio - has kept his lawyers busy. Just last week, they filed a constitutional application asking for an IT expert with a somewhat chequered past to be kicked off the case. 

9.29am People are gathering inside magistrate Stafrace Zammit's courtroom, with the hearing due to begin shortly. 

Not sure what's what and who's who? Have a quick read of our brief summary below. 

 

Event timeline

Ms Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb blast on October 16 close to her home in Bidnija.

In December, police arrested 10 men in connection with her murder.

Three of those - brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio and Vincent Muscat - were charged with her murder. The others were released without charge.

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit is presiding over the compilation of evidence. So far, she has heard how police:

1. Used the FBI's help to home in on suspicious phone numbers. One was linked to a remote-controlled device and went active at 2am in Bidnija on the day of Ms Caruana Galzia's murder. It received an SMS at the time the bomb went off and immediately went off-radar.

2. Believe that the phone which sent the bomb detonation SMS was an old Nokia 105. Police found several Nokia 105 phones at the Marsa shed they arrested the suspects at.

3. Triangulated cell tower data to work out that the killer SMS was sent from out at sea. George Degiorgio was seen going fishing on that day, and shortly after the bomb went off texted his partner "buy me wine, my love."

4. Received reports of a suspicious car regularly parked by tat-Tarġa Battery - an ideal vantage point for the killers - in the weeks leading to the murder. The car was subsequently never seen there again.

5. Found a "fresh-looking" cigarette butt with Alfred Degiorgio's DNA on it under a tree at the tat-Tarġa vantage point.

Who's in the courtroom?

Martin Fenech is appearing for Vincent Muscat, known as il-Koħħu, 55.

William Cuschieri and Martha Muscat are appearing for Alfred Degiorgio, known as il-Fulu, 53.

Josette Sultana is appearing for Alfred's brother George Degiorgio, known as iċ-Ċiniz, 55.

Philip Galea Farrugia from the attorney general's office and inspectors Keith Arnaud and Kurt Zahra are appearing for the prosecution.

Jason Azzopardi and Therese Comodini Cachia are appearing parte civile.