Two men awaiting trial for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia are calling for proceedings against them to be cancelled as they stem from what they described as unlawfully obtained evidence.

George and Alfred Degiorgio have been under arrest since December 2017.

In an application to the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, they challenged the validity of court proceedings against them noting a judgment delivered last month.

In that judgement, a court of appeal rejected all but one of the brothers’ pre-trial pleas but it upheld an objection to that part of the testimony by lead investigator Superintendent Keith Arnaud which made reference to information obtained through tapping of George Degiorgio’s phone.

No evidence was ever put forward to prove that such phone taps had been duly authorised under a warrant issued by the relative minister, nor was the recording or the relative transcript ever produced in court.

Consequently, the court ordered that no reference to such intercepts was to be made at the upcoming murder trial and it ordered the removal of that part of Arnaud’s testimony referring to the phone taps from the records of the case.

But now the Degiorgios are claiming that removing any information regarding the intercepts from the records of the case as directed by the court of appeal, was not enough.

Arnaud had testified at length about that information, attracting extensive coverage by the media that was still in the public domain, the brothers said in fresh proceedings by their lawyers.

Defence lawyer William Cuschieri, citing extracts from the police statements, said it was evident that the police had been tapping George Degiorgio’s phone prior to the October 2017 murder.

Arnaud had laid much emphasis upon those intercepts when testifying before the Magistrates’ Court, he said. 

Likewise during interrogations, investigators had “long bragged” about the intercepts in hand, saying that they would never have got to the Degiorgios and the other accused, Vincent Muscat, were it not for that information.

A call made by George Degiorgio to a third party, asking for a top-up for his mobile phone had proved crucial in linking the suspects to the bomb plot, police had said.

During interrogation they had confronted the suspect with that phone call made by Degiorgio when out at sea in the vicinity of Pembroke.

Yet, in spite of the importance of such information, proceedings against the accused were rushed through and the compilation of evidence was wrapped up upon filing of the bill of indictment, without any evidence put forward to prove that those phone taps had been lawfully obtained.

The lawyer observed that neither the police commissioner nor the attorney general produced the ministerial warrant for the recorded phone conversation.

Nor was the Security Service chief summoned to confirm the veracity thereof.

This meant that such evidence, “if it truly existed at all”, on the strength of which the Degiorgios had been arrested, arraigned and were still being detained today, could not be verified or rebutted by the accused, their lawyer argued.

It was clearly evident that the tapping took place “abusively and illegally,” he insisted. 

No-one, not even the AG, the Police Commissioner and the MSS Chief, was above the law, he continued.

Those authorities were trusted to ensure that all was done according to law rather than in breach of the law . They could not benefit from such breach in the judicial process against the accused.

The situation, he stressed, had resulted in a breach of the Degiorgios’ fundamental rights and consequently they were requesting the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction to declare the breach.

Moreover, they requested the court to determine which evidence was obtained illegally and by whom, to quash all proceedings taken against them so far and to ban any such unlawfully obtained evidence from ever being brought against them.

Finally the applicants requested adequate compensation for the alleged breach of rights.

The application was filed against the AG, the Police Commissioner and the MSS chief on Monday.

Lawyer William Cuschieri signed the application.