Politicians and people close to journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia were considered by Europol to be among "possible instigators" of her murder, an expert has testified.
The author of a report on possible scenarios and instigators behind the 2017 murder told a court on Thursday that he had identified seven possible scenarios.
Presenting the 106-page report to the court, Marinus Martin Van Der Meij said under cross-examination that the possible instigators included politicians and people close to the victim.
The former Europol expert took the witness stand on Thursday as compilation of evidence proceedings continued against businessman Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of complicity to murder the journalist.
The 'Operation Analysis Report’ was based on data extracted from the journalist’s cloned mobile phone and cloned SIM card, as well as a hard drive extracted from the cloud following the October 2017 murder.
The expert said he was to draw up an overview of the data, an outlook on the contacts of the victim through different forms of communication and the topics she was communicating.
He was also to examine different scenarios and possible instigators of the car bomb murder outside Caruana Galizia's Bidnija home.
No names
Fenech's defence team posed questions to the expert in rapid succession about who was in the report.
"Were there individuals from the political sphere?" he was asked.
"Yes".
"Close to Daphne?"
"Yes".
"Family members?"
"Yes".
"Who?"
Lead prosecutor Superintendent Keith Arnaud then objected to any names being referred to in court.
Answering questions by Arnaud, Van Der Meij said that those scenarios were to be read only in relation to that data extracted from those two exhibits.
“I went through all the data which came mainly from emails,” he explained.
There was also a language difficulty since he could not understand any communication written in Maltese so his conclusions were based on data in English.
In fact he had suggested, in his conclusions, that the court ought to appoint a Maltese expert to conduct a similar analysis on the Maltese texts.
But he was never involved in the follow-up.
Inspector Arnaud objected to a request by defence lawyer Charles Mercieca for copy of the report, saying that at this stage “we have no idea what names we are talking about.”
Magistrate Rachel Montebello agreed, pointing out that the court would first have to check the report for any of the journalist’s sources.
“Did you take into consideration any evidence?” Arnaud asked the expert, who insisted that his conclusions were based on data extracted from the two exhibits as already explained.
40,000 emails
The magistrate ordered the report to remain under seal for the Criminal Court to decide what copy was to be made available to the parties
Fenech’s lawyers persisted with one further question that was allowed by the court.
“Can you confirm if Yorgen Fenech is named in any of these seven scenarios? Was he one of those individuals mentioned?”
“No,” was he reply.
“Were there any companies linked to Yorgen Fenech that featured in those scenarios?” Arnaud asked.
But that question was not allowed by the court.
The expert said that he read through “more than 40,000 emails” categorizing them according to topics and importance and identifying the scenarios.
When asked about the defence’s line of questioning Mercieca said that the prosecution’s thesis was that Fenech was the mastermind.
“From day one, they claim that he looked for….and paid for and instigated the murder,” said Mercieca.
But all along, Fenech insisted that “he never instigated and never wanted this murder to take place.”
'Blistered' phone
Digital forensic expert Martin Bajada testified that the battery pack of Caruana Galizia's phone was “blistered.”
Asked by Mercieca to elaborate, the expert said that since the phone was kept inside two plastic bags, the battery became swollen and blistered as an effect of heat.
Bajada also told the court that he had not yet started working on a phone belonging to Keith Schembri, the former prime minister Joseph Muscat's chief of staff.
Bajada had been set that task by the Criminal Court and was expected to produce a copy of data from that device to be presented at Fenech’s murder case.
But since assigned the task by Madam Justice Grima last week, he was blocked by a ban issued by a constitutional court hearing a breach of rights claim by Schembri.
Schembri’s lawyers are claiming that his phone had gone ‘missing’ for months after being presented in evidence in the proceedings where he stands accused of bribery and money laundering.
Schembri’s lawyers claim that his rights were breached by the court’s failure to safeguard the phone, casting doubt upon its possible tampering.
But on Thursday, Bajada said that “contrary to what others were claiming, [he] suspected no tampering.”
The phone’s battery pack was “blistered.” - daphne
Asked by Mercieca to elaborate, the expert said that since the phone was kept inside two plastic bags, the battery became swollen and blistered as an effect of heat.
He said that for transparency’s sake he had sought court authorization to photograph the devices in the evidence bags before proceeding with the task set by the Criminal Court.
“There at the constitutional court they’re saying that the device was tampered with,” said Bajada.
Following Madam Justice Grima’s directions to the expert, the judge presiding over Schembri’s constitutional case issued a decree ordering that no one was to touch the phone until further direction by that court.
And Schembri’s case was also brought forward, with the judge setting an urgent hearing on Friday.
Bajada got to know of that ban on Wednesday and is expected to testify at Schembri’s case on Friday.
Asked by Magistrate Montebello whether he could tell when that ban would be lifted, Bajada replied, “it is for the constitutional court to decide.”
Meanwhile Fenech’s case continues next week.
AG lawyers Anthony Vella and Godwin Cini are prosecuting, together with superintendent Keith Arnaud. Lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran, Charles Mercieca and Marion Camilleri are defence counsel.Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Therese Comodini Cachia was parte civile.