Two men detailed how Melvin Theuma, the middleman turned state witness, passed on money to the three hitmen – Vince Muscat, Alfred Degiorgio, and George Degiorgio – following their arrest for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Otherwise, Friday’s session was largely focused on evidence. A Europol bomb expert delivered the forensic backbone of the case, along with a chain of bank, data-extraction, and transcription witnesses establishing the exhibits.

The Prison Money

Two witnesses traced how cash reached the jailed hitmen. Lawrence Pace (“il-Lolly”) said Melvin Theuma asked him, in 2019, how to send “a hundred each” to the families of the imprisoned Degiorgio brothers and Vince Muscat.

Theuma passed him roughly €300 at a time, three or so times, at a Ħamrun shop, which Pace routed through to the Degiorgios’ brother Mario at Joseph Brincat’s White Stars bar in Marsa.

Brincat corroborated it: €200-€300 passed perhaps five times, roughly weekly, “about €100 each” for the three, always against a receipt. The arrangement allegedly collapsed when Mario failed to produce a receipt for a clothing request. 

Separately, Pace described a stranger episode: while Muscat was still free, he twice drove Pace to a Siġġiewi square to hand roughly €400 through a car window to an unknown recipient, receiving only a receipt in return; money Pace said came from Muscat. 

Under cross-examination, the defence drew out that Muscat “had a gambling habit” and debts, and floated that the Siġġiewi handovers were for a garage rental.

Europol Expert Describes Bomb

The Europol explosives expert, appointed by Magistrate Anthony Vella in November 2017, told the jury the device was TNT, 300-400g, in a solid casing, placed beneath the driver’s seat and detonated from inside the car; the metal skin pushed outward, damage radiating from a single epicentre. 

He put the lethal zone at 65cm from the blast centre, “more than enough to cause death of a person sitting on the driver’s seat”.

He further explained how a GSM relay controller – a simple SMS-triggered switch, the kind used for garage doors – can detonate a device remotely.

Theuma’s Bank Trail

A BNF Bank analyst presented Theuma’s records, including a commercial lease between Theuma and Bestplay Gaming Ltd: registered at the Tumas Group’s Portomaso office and signed by Fenech, Johann Cremona and Theuma; plus rent cheques and receipts.

They also presented a Caruana Galizia family civil warrant of seizure against Theuma and Fenech.

Notably, the bank’s relationship manager had recommended closing Theuma’s account over his “bad repute” as an accused in the assassination, and refused a pardon-related cheque deposit.

Digital Extraction Expert Testifies 

Alvin Cardona, the court’s digital extraction expert, also testified. 

Cardona confirmed he photocopied documents including the page bearing the Theuma-Schembri photograph, made forensic copies of the recordings, and prepared appendices cataloguing the file types, their durations and which was which. 

He testified he had to cut some footage because of lip-reading and certain words spoken; and parts deemed not relevant, though he stressed the decision wasn’t his: “I didn’t decide.”

Cardona also handled exhibits taken from Caruana Galizia’s own property: three pen drives, two digital cameras and a small laptop. He reported that they had not been used for some time: the last content dated to 2015, with another of her profiles last active in 2014.

A deputy magistrate and two court transcribers established the provenance of the recordings and their transcripts (voices logged only as “Person A”, “Person B” and “a child”).