A court has ordered police to exhibit an email about a hotel booking linked to Rosianne Cutajar and murder suspect Yorgen Fenech as part of the MP's libel proceedings against former National Book Council chairman Mark Camilleri.

Camilleri requested the specific email as he defends his claim that Cutajar and Fenech were involved in a romantic relationship.

He requested WhatsApp chats and emails between Fenech and Cutajar to be exhibited as evidence in libel proceedings she has filed against him.

The request to produce the chats was blocked by the court when superintendent Keith Arnaud took the witness stand in the libel proceedings on Thursday as Camilleri and Cutajar faced each other across the hall for the first time since the case began. 

At the previous sitting, the court upheld a request by the applicant for the inversion of proof, ordering Camilleri to produce evidence to prove that his allegations about Cutajar were true. 

Camilleri claimed that Cutajar and Fenech, who is currently awaiting trial over his alleged complicity in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, were in a romantic relationship and that Fenech was paying Cutajar money while she defended him from corruption allegations. 

Yorgen Fenech is awaiting trial for complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

A property deal the former parliamentary secretary brokered for Fenech was a “pretence” for those payments, Camilleri wrote. 

Those allegations sparked the libel suit against him. 

On Thursday, Camilleri asked Arnaud, as lead investigator in the Caruana Galizia murder, to present chats from Fenech’s mobile phone allegedly linking him to Cutajar. 

But the witness was cut short by presiding magistrate Rachel Montebello who pointed out that the proper procedure in terms of article 518 of the Criminal Code had to be followed. 

That meant that Camilleri’s lawyer had to file an application before the Criminal Court, currently in possession of the records of Fenech’s case, seeking special authorisation to present those chats in the libel proceedings. 

Hotel booking

Another piece of evidence requested was a very specific email, concerning a hotel booking via Expedia with particular details. 

However, Arnaud explained that since the data on Fenech’s phone was “so voluminous” he had instructed his team of investigators working on the murder probe to skip anything that was not relevant to the murder. 

Therefore, he could not tell whether that email existed, Arnaud explained.

The court directed him to search for that email.

Arnaud said that he would run a “basic search” using specific keywords and report his findings at the next sitting. 

Finally, Camilleri also requested any communication between Fenech and Diane Izzo which could also be obtained from that phone data. As Arnaud stepped off the witness stand, Camilleri’s lawyer informed the court that his client would not testify on Thursday. 

The case continues in September.

Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo assisted Cutajar. Lawyer Joseph Mizzi assisted Camilleri.