Yorgen Fenech’s own messages gave jurors a detailed picture of his communications with middleman Melvin Theuma and with then Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta, of his plan to leave Malta on the eve of his arrest, and of attempts to buy weapons and cyanide.

The weapons and cyanide emails

PC Sammut told jurors that emails from Fenech’s account, taken from the laptop seized from his boat Gio, showed the attempted purchase of two hand grenades, two Glocks with suppressors, two automatic rifles and 700 rounds of ammunition, paid or to be paid in bitcoin.

The thread runs from 25 November 2018 to 12 January 2019 and ends, on the defence’s reading, with Fenech complaining that it was a scam. A separate set of emails concerns potassium and sodium cyanide powder, including one notifying the recipient that a package was on its way.  Sammut said the team had been told by superiors that Fenech had tried to buy poison, and had gone looking for evidence of it.

The defence sought to have the emails ruled inadmissible, arguing that some are the subject of separate criminal proceedings that remain sub judice, that they post-date the period covered by the bill of indictment, and that their only effect would be to show bad character. The prosecution answered that the November 2018 dating is central to its case. The court allowed the evidence, on condition that no reference be made to any pending proceedings.

Under cross-examination, Sammut agreed that he had never testified about these emails in these proceedings before, had never presented a report on them, and had not been appointed by the court to carry out the extractions or to confirm that the emails were where they were said to be. 

Silvio Valletta

Fenech’s communications with Silvio Valletta, deputy police commissioner until his retirement in August 2019, were shown to jurors. “At the time, he was my boss,” said Brady Jo Zammit, then a police sergeant, who examined the data. On re-examination Zammit confirmed that Valletta had been the superior of the officers investigating the assassination.

The messages, dated between January and June 2019, are largely social. The chats include a football final the two planned to attend together, and Valletta asking Fenech to price a private jet to Corfu for his then wife, former Gozo minister Justyne Caruana. 

In another exchange, Valletta tells Fenech: “You take the first step and you’ll find us behind you.” 

A video of Valletta in Fenech’s car was also analysed. This is the tape of Valletta inside Fenech’s Rolls-Royce. Put to him by the defence, Zammit agreed that what he had been shown in court that day bore no relation to the murder itself. In recordings, however, Fenech names Valletta as a source of information about the investigation.

This was not the only reference to police officers. Three, possibly four, photographs of former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar were found in Fenech’s chat with a contact saved as “Jean il-Bum”, and were flagged by the analyst precisely because the commissioner appeared in them.

Melvin Theuma

Jurors were also shown Signal conversations between Fenech and Theuma, recovered from a USB drive. 

In one exchange, Fenech told Theuma: “Don’t worry, my friend… no one can touch me.”

“I’ll keep you with me forever… I’ll be there even at the worst moment, as long as you remain strong. As for him, he can kiss our…” Fenech wrote in another. “I believe in you,” Theuma replied.

“We’ll win. I hope everything works out,” Theuma told Fenech in another message, informing him of arguments between the two hitmen, George and Alfred Degiorgio.

Fenech told him: “I believe they’re playing games. Did he threaten you?… Tell me everything, so if there’s a problem tomorrow morning, we can try to deal with it. Go to the depot and tell them you don’t know what they’re talking about. They’ll thank you and tell you to get on with your life.” “One day, make sure you’re on the mobile phone… so they can listen.”

Theuma responds: “It’s better if the surveillance stopped.”

Logan Wood: Fenech’s captain

Logan Wood, the captain of Fenech’s yacht Gio, was on board with him when the boat was intercepted and Fenech was arrested on the morning of 20 November 2019.]

Wood took the court through the WhatsApp exchanges of the eve of the arrest, recovered from Fenech’s own device. The yacht had been booked into the Cantiere Navale Scala yard at Pozzallo, Sicily, from December to February, confirmed by email on 15 October 2019. Fenech asked him to bring the lift-out forward.

On 19 November Wood messaged: “boss franco just called to go to catania do you know about it”. Fenech answered yes, and added “no crew please”. Wood himself wrote “the sooner the better” on the weather, and then “leaving am will look less fishy”. Asked what he had meant, he said everybody knew what was going on that day.

Fenech asked him how much cash he needed. At 19:05 Wood wrote that he would meet him at 5 and be there before the ferry. Fenech replied that he was coming down, and “i really need this”. Wood told the court he understood that to mean Fenech really needed to cross to Sicily, and said he had not asked why. “Generally I don’t like to ask.”

That evening Wood saw the photographer Matthew Mirabelli, whom he knows from kite surfing, at the marina at around five or six, and Portomaso security told him CID officers were there too. He warned Fenech against coming down, messaging “dont come cause photographer here” and then “times two of them now”. Fenech replied “its fine nothing will happen today”.

At 19:15 Fenech told Wood to say the boat was due to go on winter maintenance. Wood’s evidence was that this was so that it would look normal, and at 19:34 he confirmed back “yes told him so”. Fenech then asked whether Wood had spoken to anyone. Wood replied “no boss” and mentioned a tip-off, which the court noted had come from Mirabelli, who had told him they were going to flee.

Fenech told him to switch the AIS tracker on, then off, then, at 3.31am, to leave it on, which Wood took to mean avoiding suspicion. He had Wood walk the marina to confirm the coast was clear and to make sure “100%” that nobody was there.

At 4.26am Fenech messaged: “so dont take that pouch to engine room”, saying it looked bad. Wood told the court the pouch held Fenech’s personal cash, and confirmed that he had told police he used to hide cash for him. Asked who it would look bad to, he said he did not know, then offered that it might have been in case the police stopped them. Minutes later Fenech wrote “no no we do everything as usual”, followed by a smiley.

Fenech eventually came aboard after 9 or 10pm. Around eleven, security told Wood that CID officers were around the boat. He messaged Fenech in his cabin, and Fenech’s answer was that he had nothing to hide.

They left at about 5.30am and were intercepted roughly two miles out by military craft. Around a dozen soldiers boarded, armed, searched the boat, handcuffed both men and told Wood to bring the yacht back into Portomaso himself. Nothing illegal was found on board.

The trial continues tomorrow.