Alfred Degiorgio, the brother convicted of carrying out the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, was arrested in court on Judge Edwina Grima’s orders after refusing to answer virtually every question put to them in the trial against Yorgen Fenech.

Alfred Degiorgio broke his silence only once, at the very start.

“Before I testify, I want to say that Chris Cardona, David Gatt and Keith Schembri are involved in the murder,” Degiorgio said.

Pressed later by prosecutor Godwin Cini on what he meant, he said only: “The three are involved in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.” Asked to specify their involvement, he returned to the same four words he had used all morning: “I will not answer.”

He gave one reason for that silence, near the end of the sitting, when Grima told him he was obliged to testify.

“What protection will you give my family for me to testify?” he asked. “These three persons; you don’t know how frightening they are.”

Grima told him the court could grant protection to his family and that he could testify there and then. Degiorgio did not.

“I will not answer,” he said.

Degiorgio refused to answer questions from both the Attorney General’s office and Fenech’s own defence team, over roughly 90 minutes.

The questions from Cini included who approached him, what price he asked, where the bomb came from, who passed it to him, who gave the hitmen information, who paid his lawyers, and what Melvin Theuma wanted. 

“Is there a reason you don’t want to answer? Did someone pressure you not to?” Cini asked.

“This is your chance and your legal obligation to tell the truth. You have every chance,” Cini told him. “Explain to the jury members what you know about this murder.”

“I will not answer.”

Degiorgio said he is challenging his conviction before the European Court of Human Rights and that, for him, the case is not over. Grima’s decree records that he had already applied not to testify on those grounds, and that the application was rejected in June 2026, because he produced no evidence of what stage those proceedings had reached or of any interim order preventing this court from hearing him.

The defence’s unanswered questions

Questions from Gianella de Marco, Fenech’s defence lawyer, went unanswered too, except one:

“I have no doubt that those three are involved in the case,” he said, refusing to answer further questions on it.

The funding questions

Cini put to Degiorgio three receipts, dated 3 January 2018, 21 May 2018 and a third, which he said were found in Melvin Theuma’s possession, asking what they meant, why Theuma had them, and why Theuma was paying his lawyers’ fees. He asked who had paid the money, and who the lawyer was.

Degiorgio refused to answer each one.

The trial has previously heard evidence that Fenech allegedly funnelled more than €450,000 to the Degiorgio brothers to finance their legal defence — including Theuma’s testimony, receipts of the legal payments, and Fenech’s own police statement, in which he admitted passing on the money.

Cini also asked Degiorgio why, before Magistrate Rachel Montebello in May 2024, he had offered to answer questions only about one person, Yorgen Fenech, and why he had said Theuma’s pardon was “based on lies”. He asked who had asked him to testify in that way, and whether anyone had promised him anything to do so. Degiorgio would not answer.