Murder suspect Yorgen Fenech was back in court for his compilation of evidence in a sitting characterised by rowdy exchanges between lawyers and the prosecution.
The case against Fenech, who is accused of complicity in Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder, was scheduled for January 12, but the sitting was pushed forward.
Highlights from Friday's case:
- Defence objected to presentation of Europol data even though the expert completed his task...
- ... but they requested the Malta Security Services chief to testify at the next sitting as they want to know whose phone was tapped during investigations.
- Arnaud said former police Mario Tonna and Lawrence Cutajar were never considered as persons of interest in the murder investigation.
- Inspector says he has no information on the MSS phone taps.
Case adjourned
1.30pm After a tense three-and-a-half hour sitting in court, Magistrate Montebello adjourns the case to December 28.
Fenech embraces his mother in the hall before he is led away.
We'll be back shortly with the highlights of today's sitting.
'An open request'
1.25pm The defence persist with their demand that an MSS official is to be summoned to testify at the next sitting.
Arnaud objects to this, saying that MSS were not indicated to testify in this schedule. Bedsides, the defence must specify the reason for their request.
"It’s an open request. It must be filtered."
Mercieca tells the court that any delays work against the accused as the compilation of evidence needs to come to a close within a maximum term of 20 months.
Yorgen's 'right to know'
1.10pm Mercieca insists that phone taps were relevant. He says that there was conversation between Theuma and his daughter about the case.
Arnaud hits back: "How do you know that? Please clarify your statement."
Arnuad says he has no problem revealing certain names to court but court alone, not in the presence of defence or anyone else.
Mercieca says in one recording the partner spoke to Theuma about bail for the Degiorgio brothers as well as the money to be paid.
"Prosecution are saying that Melvin Theuma's partner is not relevant. But we are saying that she was relevant. So relevant that her phone was tapped. And Yorgen Fenech has a right to know what was being said."
Arnaud steps in and underlines that he said that she had never been investigated in relation to the murder, not that she was not tapped.
The defence insists that Theuma and his partner had discussed matters related to the murder and so are of interest to them too.
Defence wants MSS boss to testify
1pm Mercieca says that in today’s sitting they were hoping to get phone taps and Zahra’s notes.
But in view of what emerged today, they wish to have MSS chief testify in court.
That witness is not indicated in the current schedule, the prosecution and parte civile remark.
The defence describes him as an important and relevant witness who ought to be summoned in the search for the truth.
"You cannot just ask the Pope to come here to testify," the court replies.
Recordings saved on laptop
12.45pm Mercieca insists that all data from all devices should be presented in court. Arnaud points out that this request had already been made by the defence.
"They had called for a data room wherein to sift through all data. But that request had been rejected by the court. Now it’s coming back to me," he says.
"And here I am being attacked all the time. The defence had called for all data from all devices. We had agreed to sift through that data together to withdraw only that data that was relevant."
He says a number of voice recordings were saved on the laptop of Theuma's partner's daughter.
Fenech is seen leaning forward to speak to his team.
Bail request
12.35pm The air in the court room remains tense. The lawyers say something to Yorgen Fenech, who nods.
Arnaud is holding on tight.
After some consultation, Mercieca says they will suspend cross examination for today.
There will be another sitting and it will be a long one, the magistrate says.
Mercieca points out that they want prosecution to put forward information without delay. The accused is still under arrest and his bail depends upon the prosecution.
Azzopardi intervenes and asks if there is another bail request the court is not informed about.
Mercieca: "This time last year, we were told that investigations were still ongoing. And today, accused is still being denied bail."
Focus on Cutajar
12.30pm The defence lawyer says investigations have been ongoing for three years and not one person has been arrested.
Inspector Kurt Zahra stands up to defend his colleague. He objects to this line of questioning and the fact that Arnaud is being asked about matter that concerns another entity [MSS].
Again, the defence lawyer wants to know from Arnaud if his former police boss was being tapped.
Arnaud: "No, I don't know."
Mercieca: "Have you heard of interceptions involving Lawrence Cutajar?"
Arnaud: "Yes, I've heard. That's not the way investigations are done. And no, nobody informed me of intercepts connected with him."
Former police chief Lawrence Cutajar.Those phone taps
12.20pm Some gesture from the defence’s bench doesn't go unnoticed as the magistrate again reprimands them.
Magistrate: "Let me make this clear. I’ll hear the cross examination in the interests of justice and not because the accused is asking for it."
Mercieca asks for the service provider data. "Do you have it?"
Arnaud: "Yes."
Mercieca: "Can you present it?"
Arnaud: "No. That can only be presented by the service provider, and besides, I cannot hand you such data which can easily be tampered with."
The magistrate appears irritated: "You've asked for data over and over."
Mercieca: You roped in the MSS for phone taps."
Arnaud: "Yes."
Mercieca: "Were there wire taps in connection with Edwin Brincat?"
Arnaud: "Yes. Sometimes in interrogation we bluff. And we used the phone taps."
Mercieca: "Were there other wire taps on (Lawrence) Cutajar (ex-police boss)?"
Arnaud: "No."
Mercieca: "And Keith Schembri?"
Arnaud: "I'm not informed about that."
Mercieca: "And Theuma?"
Arnaud: "Yes."
Mercieca: "And Mario Tonna?"
Arnaud: "I don't know. Mario Tonna was never of interest to me in this investgation."
Again, there's an outburst in court.
Magistrate intervenes as sparks fly
12.10pm The magistrate asks if these people are still being investigated.
Arnaud replies: "Yes," adding that he has no problem telling just the court the identity of these individuals.
Mercieca moves on to ask for all data from service providers gathered in this investigation. Again, objections fly in the courtroom.
Magistrate intervenes: "No, no. There have already been three requests for this but the court will not allow a blanket presentation of all data."
There has already been a decree that only data relative to this case is to be presented. Even the criminal court had spoken clearly along the same lines.
"Don't keep going on about this. What else?" she asks the lawyer.
The testimony-in-chief stops here. But defence want to switch to cross examination. And of course there are more objections...
Lawyer wants names mentioned
12.05pm The parties have been firing questions at each other without standing up.
Mercieca presses on: "What did you ask of MSS? To monitor persons of interest, including the Degiorgio brothers, (Vince) Muscat, Theuma?"
Arnaud: "Who else? I cannot mention names not lined to the case."
Mercieca: "You are bound to."
Arnaud: "My only obligation is towards the court."
Mercieca: "If necessary, we'll hear it behind closed doors."
Arnaud: "I will not do that, not even behind closed doors."
Charles Mercieca (left) entering court with Gianluca Caruana Curran in a file photo.The phone taps
12pm There's a constant ping pong between lawyers in court.
Mercieca: "Who gave you that intercept? Isn’t it some official from MSS?"
Magistrate tells Arnaud: "Don't answer that."
Azzopardi: "Maybe he wants the address as well."
Mercieca: "Did you ask if that phone tap was done under the minister’s warrant?"
The question elicits more protests.
Mercieca: "In your investigations did you confirm if any phone taps were used in another interrogation?"
Arnaud: " I do not ask MSS who they are tapping or not. We were interrogating Brincat and we just had a suggestion from the colleagues on the murder task force to use that tactic."
Mercieca: "Who gave that suggestion?"
Mercieca: "I cannot name the person because it was a member of MSS."
The magistrate insists no names are to be mentioned.
Keith Arnaud (centre) in a file photo.Allegation of a frame up
11.45pm Lawyer Mercieca says "3B" was published in the media.
"What's 3B" people in the courtroom ask.
Someone comments that if a lawyer mentions this, then probably he leaked it himself.
Arnaud says that he can come back, prepared to answer about all this.
Arnaud says that once after interrogating Edwin Brincat, as a questioning technique, police obtained phone tap from MSS.
Mercieca: "Whose mobile phone was tapped?"
A perplexed Arnaud turns to the magistrate.
Magistrate asks: "What is it you want of the inspector? These are not questions to be put to this witness."
The defence claim that in that phone tap, there was an allegation of a frame up.
But Arnaud insists that has no information on phone taps: "How am I meant to know?
"It was a phone tap of some conversation between Melvin Theuma and Edwin Brincat. But I would not know whose phone was being tapped by MSS."
What's the line of questioning?
11.40am The magistrate asks the defence team what exactly they intend to question Arnaud about.
"It's related to the investigations," the defence says.
Azzopardi reacts: "Oh no, that's not what the case referral says. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!"
The magistrate insists that the subject for today's hearing was clear.
Tension in the court room
11.30am Arnaud says he was not expecting to testify about this.
Magistrate agrees and says that Arnaud was meant to present the data, not testify. Mercieca tries to push on but the magistrate intervenes saying his questions fall clearly beyond the parameters of today’s hearing and the court won’t tolerate it.
The defence teams continues to insist, hinting that prosecution is holding back important information, and therefore denying Fenech his right to get bail.
"It's obvious," one of the team says.
The magistrate wants the lawyer to stand when addressing the court.
Mercieca says Fenech is still behind bars, more than three years after the assasination. There's a raging debate going on in court.
Eight sessions
11.20am Arnaud says the police did not grant disclosure so as not to prejudice other investigations. In August and September the police were still speaking to other parties.
Mercieca: "With who?"
The magistrate intervenes - she doesn't want any names mentioned.
Arnaud says that they spoke to Theuma in June and then in July his incident took place.
There were eight sessions with another witness discussing the new recordings. Each session lasted over one hour or so.
What was in the recordings?
11.15am Lawyer Mercieca asks Arnaud how he got to know about the other recordings.
"We asked for extractions from all devices seized from Theuma's properties. We first worked on those found in the ice cream box (which Theuma was carrying upon his arrest). Then after going through those recordings, we started working on recordings from devices seized from other persons."
Mercieca: "Unless one asks, we cannot understand."
Arnaud hits back: "Or else one doesn't want to understand."
Mercieca: "Ten recordings were found in January and they were directly related to Fenech's charges. They were found by your officials, right?"
Arnaud: "Yes. We’re working on copies given to me by magistrate handling that inquiry."
Mercieca: "Are there allegations in them that Theuma's pardon was negotiated?"
Arnaud: "I don’t know offhand if that was in these recordings or the other original recordings. If I’m not mistaken the pardon issue came up in those eight recordings discovered by defence in July... from the original ice cream box. But rest assured that we will present all recordings. We called for copies of extractions of all data from all devices. That’s normal practice in each investigation I carry out, not just this one."
Mercieca: "When did you attest that there was data relevant to this case?"
Arnaud: "It was around January or February."
Recordings found later
11.05am Inspector Keith Arnaud is asked to take to the witness stand. The defence lawyer asks for more recordings presented in another inquiry.
These were not in the box Theuma had been carrying upon his arrest but were found later (January/February 2020) in his partner's daughter's laptop. Arnaud has no authorisation to present them.
Lawyer: "Why didn't you seek authorisation so far?"
Arnaud: "I haven’t. Simple. That doesn’t mean that the authorisation won’t be sought or that we’re trying to hold things up here."
Melvin Theuma pictured early this year. Photo: Mark Zammit CordinaLawyers clash
11am Alvin Cardona is called back in. He is shown one of three pen drives. As the expert is about to leave, prosecution and parte civile say “what about the drives?” If they’re ready, why not present them today?
A heated exchange erupts between defence lawyers and parte civile lawyer Jason Azzopardi.
Lawyers say that Europol data was not to be presented today. Today, it’s only the data they called for in their last application which should be presented, they say.
Azzopardi rebuts, saying that Cardona is a court expert and it’s not for defence to control his work.
Defence lawyer Charles Mercieca says: "if Dr Azzopardi had political motives..."
The remark is not met lightly.
The court intervenes and says that court procedure states that today it’s the requests in defence’s application that hold sway.
"This is surreal," Azzopardi says.
Bulky envelopes
10.45am Court officials are presenting transcripts, which come in bulky envelopes. The officials take the oath, saying they have worked on voice recordings saved on pendrives.
Again, the focus is on the way the recordings were transcribed, and how they checked each others' work.
The magistrate’s deputy registrar now takes the oath. She says that she got the 8 voice recordings on three pen drives from Alvin Cardona in July. The transcribers then withdrew two of those pen drives. The third pen drive was for the court.
Data procedure explained
10.35am Alvin Cardona, the court-appointed expert working on the Europol data, is next. He was to present Theuma's audio statement. He says some parts of the DVDs had to be censored and muted since the information was not related to the crime.
He says he has completed his work in that regard. It was copied on pen drives which he handed over to the court deputy.
Off the record
10.20am Magistrate Rachel Montebello takes her place. The court is in session.
The inspectors confirm that three psychiatrists are present. Before they take the oath, magistrate says that their testimony cannot be published in the media.
We're inside
10.05am We're one week away from Christmas and we're back in hall 22. Relatives of Caruana Galizia are in the court room as witnesses and lawyers gather. Fenech has just been escorted in through the back door. He waves at his relatives as he makes his way to the dock.
Theuma is expected to be the main focus in today's session.
Background: Theuma, once a close associate of Fenech, was given a presidential pardon to tell all about Caruana Galizia's murder in October 2017. The case took a dramatic turn last July when Theuma was found with stab wounds at his residence in Swieqi. Police believe the wounds were self inflicted.
What happened last time?
9.45am In the last session on December 2, Europol experts testified about the process linked to extracting the data found on Fenech’s phone.
It emerged that the data was extracted by a Europol expert in late October of this year and the process took around three days to complete.
Fenech's bail request was once again denied.
Who are the main players?
9.30am Let's take a look at the key figures in this complex case.
Yorgen Fenech: a business tycoon and heir to a family fortune, and the man in the dock: Fenech is accused of complicity in Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder;
Melvin Theuma: a taxi driver who worked for Fenech and who has testified that he served as a middleman between Fenech and the alleged hitmen;
Vince Muscat, Alfred Degiorgio, George Degiorgio: the alleged hitmen;
Keith Arnaud, Kurt Zahra: the lead police investigators and prosecutors;
Keith Schembri: a childhood friend of Fenech's and the chief of staff to Joseph Muscat when he was prime minister;
Lawrence Cutajar: the former police commissioner;
Kenneth Camilleri: a member of Joseph Muscat's security detail;
Johann Cremona: a business associate of Yorgen Fenech's.
Edwin Brincat (Il-Ġojja): a friend of Lawrence Cutajar and Melvin Theuma;
Rachel Montebello: the presiding magistrate;
Gianluca Caruana Curran, Marion Camilleri, Charles Mercieca: Yorgen Fenech's legal team;
Jason Azzopardi, Therese Comodini Cachia: lawyers appearing for the Caruana Galizia family.
Philip Galea Farrugia, Nadia Attard: representing the attorney general's office and assisting the prosecution.