University lecturer Simon Mercieca will have to wait until January to respond to a contempt of court charge, after neither he nor the director of the criminal courts was summoned for the first hearing of the case. 

Mercieca faces the charge for having allegedly shared audio clips which were not intended for publication on his Facebook page. 

The clips purported to be snippets of conversations between a business partner of Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech and the self-confessed middleman in the murder, Melvin Theuma.

Magistrate Montebello, who is presiding over the compilation of evidence against Fenech, had forbidden publication of the clips following complaints filed by prosecutors and the Caruana Galizia family. 

They had first been published on social media platform Reddit by an anonymous account and were then shared by Mercieca on his Facebook page. 

The magistrate had therefore ordered the director of the criminal courts to institute action against him and to inform the police commissioner of the matter. 

The first hearing in the case was due to take place this week. But at the appointed date and time, it turned out that neither the director of the criminal courts nor Mercieca had been served with the summons.

The court thus put off the case to January, pending notification.