Former Economic Crimes Unit superintendent Ray Aquilina has been arrested in connection with alleged leaks from the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.
Sources confirmed to Times of Malta that Aquilina was taken in for police questioning along with a number of others believed to have played a part in giving out secret information to players involved in the 2017 assassination of the journalist.
The interrogations are taking place at the Financial Crimes Investigation Department in Santa Venera.
Murder middleman Melvin Theuma has testified in court that he was expecting to receive a list detailing which of his properties would be raided by the police in November 2019. That list was allegedly to be supplied by Aquilina, at the time a superintendent at the ECU.
Aquilina is no longer a police officer.
Police used the money laundering raid as cover to enter Theuma’s home and secure secretly taped conversations between him and Yorgen Fenech, the man he alleges masterminded the car bombing on the journalist.
Messages exchanged between Fenech and Theuma in the days and hours leading up to the middleman’s arrest show the pair knew the planned money-laundering raids were just a guise for the police to obtain the recordings. An inquiry into all the leaks that plagued the murder investigation is ongoing.
In other recordings, Theuma and Fenech's business associate Johann Cremona reportedly discussed a plan to get Aquilina to drop the planned money laundering charges.
Cremona was one of the key links to Theuma in the plot to cover up Caruana Galizia’s murder, with the Fenech business associate repeatedly urging the middleman to get rid of the incriminating recordings and electronic equipment.