Police are in possession of new material possibly implicating third parties in the 2017 car bomb explosion that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia, a court heard on Thursday.

The detail emerged when lead investigator, superintendent Keith Arnaud returned to the witness stand in a case where Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers claim that his right to a fair hearing was breached when police were selective in handing over data gathered throughout the murder probe.

Fenech is currently awaiting trial for alleged complicity in the murder, but his lawyers claim that without full disclosure there can be no trial. 

At the previous sitting in May, the lawyers had requested Arnaud present all phone data, CCTV footage, geolocation data, police statements and all other material data gathered throughout the murder investigation. 

On Thursday, Arnaud explained how, in the very early days after the murder, while still gathering evidence from the crime scene, investigators had asked for call data linked to certain persons, by way of a starting point for investigations.

That data was green-lighted, but a couple of weeks later, with fresh evidence in hand, those early names were “totally cast aside and did not feature at all ever since,” said Arnaud.

For that reason, any call data relative to “those selected few” ought not be disclosed and nor were their names to be revealed, said Arnaud.

However, Charles Mercieca, one of Fenech’s lawyers, argued that such exercise of exclusion could best be undertaken by the court itself rather than the prosecuting officer, especially since this case was “all about the issue of non-disclosure by the police”.

Names in a sealed envelope

The court, presided over by Madam Justice Audrey Demicoli, directed the superintendent to present a list of all those about whom information had been collected.

However, that list was to be presented in a sealed envelope, accessible only to the court and the lawyers and was to be withdrawn once its contents were checked. 

When the name of middleman Melvin Theuma first came into the picture early in 2018, police focused on keeping him well within their sights.

One way of doing that was by installing a CCTV camera outside a Marsa residence where Theuma frequently turned up.

Melvin Theuma turned state witness when he was arrested. Photo: Jonathan Borg

That residence, which belonged to Mario Degiorgio, a brother of alleged hitmen George and Alfred Degiorgio, became a “hotspot” for investigators, said Arnaud, explaining how the surveillance camera was installed around May or June 2018. 

Although it remained in place until the end of that year or so, it returned “little results”, other than confirming Theuma's visits, bearing food or coinciding with telephone calls by the brothers in jail. 

One day, Theuma was monitored after being heard saying that he was heading to Portomaso.

But the main focus of investigators was Mario Degiorgio’s home, since most activity revolved around there. 

Arnaud on Thursday presented an updated list of persons questioned in relation to the crime, including dates, a record of all those present and whether these persons were legally assisted at the time. 

The four-page long list was an updated version of another handed earlier on to Fenech’s lawyers, said Arnaud, explaining that he occasionally jotted down notes during such audiovisual statements to spare him the time of having to listen to the entire recording at a later stage.

Some of those brief notes were retained while others deemed unnecessary were discarded. 

No minutes of meetings at Castille or notes deemed necessary during work sessions where investigators took stock of work done and mapped the tasks still to be done were kept, Arnaud explained.

Asked about data from Fenech’s phone, which Arnaud evidently had in hand when testifying back in 2019 and before that device was handed over to Europol for data extraction, the witness explained that what he had at the time was only “a partial extraction”.

Working from a specially-reserved room at police headquarters, Europol officers called in to assist local investigators after Fenech’s arrest, had handed over immediately whatever data they could extract, before proceeding with full extraction at their head offices at The Hague. 

Fenech’s lawyers reserved one final question about any material collected by investigators relative to third parties possibly linked to the murder. 

That was when Arnaud replied that last month, police had obtained four DVDs of fresh information, adding that investigations were still ongoing. 

The case continues in July.

Lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran, Charles Mercieca and Marion Camilleri assisted Fenech. Lawyer Maurizio Cordina assisted the respondents.