One of the men accused of allegedly supplying the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia is insisting that there is fresh evidence in his favour which he wants to bring to the court’s notice.
This was the crux of another application filed on Tuesday by Robert Agius, who, alongside his brother Adrian, their alleged associate Jamie Vella and alleged hitman in the journalist’s assassination George Degiorgio, are currently facing compilation of evidence proceedings linked to that murder as well as the 2015 murder of lawyer Carmel Chircop.
“There’s evidence in our favour,” said Agius’ lawyer, Alfred Abela, making the defence’s position clear when the murder proceedings resumed on Wednesday.
For this reason, the defence filed an application in terms of article 405(5) of the Criminal Code which provides for the re-examination or examination of new witnesses upon the demand of the accused.
In this case, the lawyers wanted to put questions to lead prosecutors superintendent Keith Arnaud and Inspector Wayne Camilleri who are handling the case against the two Maksar brothers, Vella and Degiorgio.
The same provision of law was resorted to by Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers in the murder proceedings against the businessman, who is currently awaiting trial for his alleged complicity in the Caruana Galizia murder.
However, AG lawyer George Camilleri pointed out that Agius’ application ought to have been filed before the Criminal Court when the records are referred back to the AG.
That position was backed by parte civile lawyer Jason Azzopardi who said that the same provision was applied “in other murder proceedings” when the records were at the AG’s Office.
Defence lawyer René Darmanin rebutted that the prosecution’s argument meant that the defence would simply have to file another application before the criminal court once the records were referred back to the state prosecutor’s office.
As the parties engaged in some legal wrangling, Magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo suddenly addressed one of the accused who sat quietly, observing the proceedings.
“Mr Vella, where is your tie? Weren’t you provided with a tie in prison?”
“There are many things we are not provided with, such as our rights. Those are thrown away in the rubbish,” remarked the man, lapsing back into silence.
After hearing submissions on the defence’s request, the court ordered service of the application to the Attorney General, granting the office 24 hours to file a written reply.
The court will then decree upon the defence’s request to summon those police witnesses.
Earlier in the sitting, a court IT expert presented two forensic clones of a hard drive, containing six terabytes of data, exhibited by Europol.
Answering a question by Azzopardi, expert Keith Cutajar said that he had personally collected the exhibit from the magistrate’s chambers and produced the copies by using particular hardware which automatically ran the task.
He then stored the data on USB to make it easily accessible.
The case continues next week.
Lawyers Ishmael Psaila and William Cuschieri were also defence counsel.