Lawyer Jason Azzopardi said on Monday that a court application by Yorgen Fenech demanding court action over Facebook posts he had uploaded, was the latest in various attempts to stifle and hinder him in his “professional duty.”

Lawyers for Fenech three days ago initiated court action over posts uploaded by Azzopardi, claiming they are impeding his right to a fair trial.

Azzopardi represents the Caruana Galizia family in court proceedings and is also shadow minister for justice. Yorgen Fenech stands accused of having been an accomplice in Daphne Caruana Gaizia's murder. 

In a written reply to the court application, Azzopardi hit back at what he said were Fenech’s constant attempts to hinder the family lawyers during the ongoing murder compilation, through a series of “confusing and poor” interpretations of procedural laws and a “host of red herrings,” claiming that the family had no right to cross-examine nor summon witnesses.

All such attempts had been censured by the presiding magistrate. Indeed, the role of the victim’s lawyer was to ensure that the charges against the accused were proven and that all evidence was duly gathered at the compilation stage.

That role shared similar, but not identical functions, as the prosecution, since the minute the bill of indictment was issued, participation in the proceedings by the victim’s lawyers was curtailed, until the case reached jury verdict stage.

'Years away from trial'

“We’re still years away from the trial by jury,” Azzopardi argued, adding that the murder trial was some “two, three or perhaps four years away”.  meaning that the effect of such social media posts was also be weighed against that lapse of time.

Azzopardi said that as the family lawyer, it was his “professional duty” and not simply his right, to state that Fenech was responsible for the journalist’s assassination. And he could “not be silenced outside court in a society where open court proceedings were a right of society itself.”

As for the Facebook posts themselves, Azzopardi said he found it hard in the first place to understand why Fenech’s lawyers had asked the court to take action against himself alone when all he had done was share posts uploaded by the victim’s children. Why not complain about the original posts rather than his own shares?

Moreover, the application was also to be viewed against an ongoing “character assassination campaign” against him, launched by a number of individuals who were “clearly engaged by the accused.”

They posted comments portraying Fenech as the victim of a frame-up, claiming that the charges against him were false, that he was the victim of bullying and that the judges presiding the public inquiry had been “bribed and had an agenda.”

It was also being claimed that it was not true that Daphne Caruana Galizia had been killed because of what she was about to publish regarding the Electrogas deal. All this was an attempt to discredit the late journalist’s work.

Such posts did not prejudice justice, it seemed, argued Azzopardi.

Yet his own shares of posts uploaded by the victim’s children, about the crime that caused an outcry in Malta and beyond, were said to prejudice the accused’s presumption of innocence.

Citing numerous judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, Azzopardi observed that court saying that high profile criminal cases were bound to attract “a degree of media scrutiny, comments and intense criticism,” let alone by the victim’s family and their lawyers, Azzopardi remarked.

Moreover, when Fenech asked for a presidential pardon, he was publicly admitting his guilt and had even instituted court action when that pardon was turned down, went Azzopardi’s final argument.

The reply was filed in the Criminal Court.