Yorgen Fenech returned to court on Monday, as the court case against the man accused of complicity in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia resumed.
In a court session lasting just under two hours, the court:
- Ordered the prosecution to disclose information to Yorgen Fenech's lawyers about four particular phone calls made ahead of Fenech's arrest. The police had argued that the calls concerned middleman Melvin Theuma and were not relevant to Fenech.
- Ordered contempt of court action against journalists who wrote articles which could have impinged on Fenech's presumption of innocence.
- Heard representatives from telecoms companies GO and Melita confirm that a particular phone number received two calls from a number overseas on August 23 and November 18 2020. The first call was not answered while the second lasted mere seconds.
- Turned down a defence request to summon a Malta Security Service representative to testify about surveillance they conducted about the case.
- Told lawyers to sort out a disagreement over which police notes to present in the case, in line with an earlier court decree requiring prosecutors to disclose information relevant to the accused’s defence.
As it happened
Live blog ends
11.43am This live blog will end here. We will have a summary of the hearing's key points available at the top of the article shortly. Thank you for having joined us.
Case adjourned to February 2
11.41am That's all for today. The magistrate adjourns the case to February 2, 10am.
Yorgen Fenech is led out of the court room. His wife and entourage of friends follow behind him.
Magistrate orders action following media articles
11.37am The magistrate orders the court registrar to take action against the authors of articles cited by the Fenech team in its application.
[We do not yet know which articles were cited or what exactly the defence highlighted in this application].
Lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran thanks the court and asks for the prosecution to summon civilian witnesses at the next hearing.
Defence's push for media silence
11.33am Magistrate Montebello reads quickly through parts of a decree. She makes reference to a media report which described the accused as “guilty” and says this goes against his presumption of innocence.
The right to freedom of expression must be exercised in good faith and based on facts, she says.
It appears the defence has sought a ban on media reports concerning the case. But the magistrate notes that Fenech is a well-known person, that the case is of public interest and that she has banned data from his mobile phone being handed to any third parties.
Public debates about the case should be avoided, the magistrate says, and only the media should report on the criminal proceedings under way.
Prosecution uneasy with defence's request
11.22am Zahra is not too keen to display the full notes. Doing so might prejudice other cases, he says.
His colleague, superintendent Keith Arnaud, is even more forceful.
“They are asking for information which we have not even testified about... I just cannot understand this,” he says.
The magistrate says the court does not want all material evidence from the investigation, but only the information relevant to the accused’s defence.
Notes about il-Ġojja
11.17am Zahra says he did not present notes which he did not testify about or those concerning what Yorgen Fenech had told investigators before his pardon request was turned down.
Defence lawyers say they would be satisfied if all police notes were presented to the court, with the court then deciding which are relevant and which are not.
They say notes concerning the interrogation of Edwin Brincat [il-Ġojja] are among those missing, and it is clear Brincat is important to the case. That makes them doubt the prosecution's transparency, they say.
Inspector Kurt Zahra asked about missing notes
11.13am With that matter settled, defence lawyers turn their sights to police notes disclosed to them.
They say the notes are missing around 15 pages at a point when Melvin Theuma
is mentioned.
Deputy AG Galea Farrugia explains that Theuma gave information about other cases, and that those references were removed so as not to prejudice other
cases.
Inspector Kurt Zahra is summoned to the witness stand, to explain further.
Defence to get call info
11.08am A small win for the defence: magistrate Montebello says that given that it seems there was no sensitive information in these calls, they should be disclosed to the accused’s lawyers.
Any information reaching the prosecution’s hands must be made available to defence, the magistrate makes clear.
Defence lawyers thank the court.
Phone calls concerned Melvin Theuma
10.59am Defence lawyers clarify that while they know of four particular calls which they want information about, if there were others which led to Fenech’s arraignment, they want information about those too.
As lawyers argue, the magistrate takes note of their arguments and draws a line under the matter.
Any calls relevant to the defence, even those which were only momentarily in the defence’s possession, should be made accessible, she says.
Arnaud says those calls concerned [middleman] Melvin Theuma and had no impact on Yorgen Fenech’s arraignment.
Fenech’s lawyers contest that conclusion, saying it is “absurd” to argue that calls about Theuma had no bearing on Fenech’s arraignment.
“Yorgen Fenech was arraigned right after Melvin Theuma was granted a pardon,” says Charles Mercieca.
Information about phone calls
10.52am Lawyers and the court discuss disclosure, as defence lawyers argue that they are seeking the phone intercepts which led to their client’s indictment.
Charles Mercieca, representing Fenech, cites four calls and says Arnaud knows their “exact date and time” but refuses to hand the information over.
Arnaud reiterates that this information was “never in police possession”.
“I cannot give something I never possessed,” he says.
Quizzed about Telia
10.45am The witness is pressed for information about Telia - "can you confirm it is a police service provider?" Charles Mercieca asks - but says she cannot confirm that.
[Reminder - Yorgen Fenech's wife had said she had found a missed call from her husband's phone number this summer. Her husband was in police custody and his phone was with investigators at the time. These questions may be linked to that incident].
Where did the overseas call come from?
10.42am Abela says number ‘A’ was an overseas one routed via Melita. She cannot say which country the call originated from – only that information about it was sent by roaming operator Telia.
Arnaud asks the witness whether the company knows where Telia is based or where the number was based when the call was made.
She says no such information is available.
Abela tells the court that the first, "zero duration" call means there was no reply.
Call dates and times
10.37am Abela presents a disc containing data about the phone numbers the police asked for information about.
She says a call was placed on August 23, 2020 at around 2pm which was 0 seconds long, and another call was made on November 18, 2020 at 3am which lasted 1.5 seconds. [The 2020 reference clears up the earlier confusion about which year the witness was referring to].
The phone numbers are not registered with Melita, Abela tells the court.
Melita representative summoned
10.34am Bonnici is done testifying. Next up is a representative of another telecoms provider – Melita. Emily Abela takes the oath.
Calls from A to B
10.30am Bonnici tells the court that he can confirm that number 'B' received these two calls, but not that the calls were made from number 'A', given the gateway used.
The company trawled data up to December 2019, he says, and found no further activity related to that number. Mobile phone data is preserved for six months, he explains.
Tracing two calls
10.27am GO was asked [by the police] to gather information about two separate calls made in August and November [the year is not made clear].
Bonnici says one call did not even last a single second – “zero duration” – while the other was three seconds long.
The number making the call was an overseas one and the call used a Melita gateway, rather than a GO one. Bonnici says that means they could not trace any further information, as police had requested.
Bonnici reads out the two numbers, but we cannot share them with you as the court has banned mention of them.
The witness tells defence lawyers that he cannot provide geolocation data related to the calls, given that the gateway was a Melita one.
GO representative summoned
10.23am Defence lawyers will quiz representatives from mobile service providers.
A representative from GO, Anthony Bonnici, is the first to be summoned.
Court in session
10.20am Magistrate Rachel Montebello takes her place and the court session can begin.
Lawyers take their place
10.14am Fenech’s wife is in court, as is one of Caruana Galizia’s sisters.
Superintendent Keith Arnaud and inspector Kurt Zahra, who are prosecuting, take their seat at the prosecution’s bench. With them is deputy attorney general Philip Galea Farrugia.
Fenech’s defence team – Gianluca Caruana Curran, Charles Mercieca and Marion Camilleri – are all present.
Jason Azzopardi is in court, too, representing the Caruana Galizia family.
Fenech in court
10.10am We’re in hall 22 of the Valletta law courts – the hall usually reserved for trials by jury.
Yorgen Fenech is here, under the tight escort he’s become accustomed to by now. He’s sharply dressed in a dark grey suit, white shirt and dark tie.
No testimony by MSS chief
9.55am Yorgen Fenech's lawyers spent a good deal of time last time around asking about MSS work in the murder case and emphasising their client's need to know about details of that surveillance work - who was being tapped, what was overheard and so on.
Magistrate Rachel Montebello has not been won over by their arguments, however. She's turned down their request to summon the head of the MSS to testify.
We will have details about that decision later in the morning - we only learnt of the court decree minutes ago - but it seems the magistrate found that defence lawyers had not listed the head of the MSS as a witness on a list they had previously filed in court.
Welcome
9.52am Good morning and welcome to this live blog. We're at the Valletta law courts this morning.