“I’m here to tell the truth, as painful as it might be,” Fenech said. “I was reckless in the interview,” Cini noted, adding that he gave the statement with his lawyers present, more than eight days after his arrest.

The key differences focused on Keith Schembri’s alleged claims to Fenech regarding a plot to murder Daphne, first in 2014 and then regarding the payment of a deposit in 2016, both of which were absent from his testimony in court; and details on the alleged dinner at the end of 2017 where Schembri, Theuma and Fenech discussed the murder plot.

“According to Keith, there was a plan (in 2014)”, Fenech said in court. “I never took it seriously.”

“I told him he was crazy,” Fenech said, adding that this was part of the 2015 plan alleged by the Degiorgio brothers and Vince Muscat.

In the statement, Fenech said Schembri had told him several times that he wanted to get rid of Caruana Galizia. “He had been asking me since 2014!” he told police. “The theatrics began in 2014,” he said in court. He could not say why he had not raised it in his testimony.

The motive he described also shifted. “Schembri’s obsession was with personal attacks,” Fenech said in court. In his statement, he had told police that Schembri’s animosity also stemmed from her writing about the government.

“Why didn’t you bring it up in your testimony?” Cini asked. “My lawyers didn’t ask.”

“”[The meal] was on a Thursday. I remember that,” Fenech said in court about the dinner at the ranch in 2016. He had described the meal as casual, saying that he, Schembri, relatives and Theuma discussed Caruana Galizia’s writing on Schembri’s cancer diagnosis.

“You never said you were the three of you at a table discussing it,” Cini said, listing what else was missing from the statement: the lamb, the invitation to Theuma, the PlayStation games, and Theuma urging Schembri to get rid of Caruana Galizia.

The account of what Theuma said, and when, also moved. In his testimony, Fenech said Theuma offered at the dinner that he could get rid of Caruana Galizia. In his statement, he said Theuma barely spoke at the dinner and raised it afterwards, in the car.

“I didn’t have faith in the police,” Fenech said when asked about the changes from statement to testimony. “Maybe I wasn’t comprehensive.”

“Was your police statement invented – and you’re just building on that now?” Cini asked. “No,” Fenech replied.

“Not comprehensive when I have a statement the size of a bible here,” Cini replied. “I was scared they were going to entrap me,” Fenech said

“The gist is, Keith Schembri brought Theuma on board for the murder,” Fenech said. “You didn’t say that before,” Cini said. “Did you remember this this evening?”

There were further discrepancies in the plan to murder Daphne – namely, on Theuma engaging the hitmen and the fee paid for the murder. Fenech maintained that he never asked Theuma whom he was speaking to, or about the plan or any other detail. “I didn’t have interest,” he said. “I never asked him.”

“You expect us to believe that you three were around the table, Melvin Theuma spoke to a clique who threatened him because of a conversation at your ranch, and you didn’t tell him what the hell you were doing?” Cini asked. “I did,” Fenech replied. “But you told him that you would speak to him about it after he told you about the plan.”

“You didn’t chuck him out as a taxi driver at the Hilton?” Cini asked. “It was too late,” Fenech replied. “You didn’t do it in October 2016?” “I was trying to defuse the situation,” Fenech said. “And I managed. In fact, his plan began again in April.”

Fenech told police that Theuma picked him up on the way back from the airport and mentioned €120,000. In court he maintained: “I discovered it was €150,000 after the murder.”

Cini put it to him that key figures, including the hitmen Vince Muscat and George Degiorgio corroborate Theuma’s timeline and payments,

“Melvin saw an opportunity like the criminal he is,” Fenech said. “You had the option to report him to the police?” Cini asked. “No, I didn’t take the option.”

“You chose the worst choice – can we agree?”

“I feel like I stopped him, and that’s what I can tell you. If it was the best thing to do, I don’t know. But it did stop him.”

Cini told him his “effort” had been focused on helping the person evade the police. “I never paid for the murder of Daphne or anyone else,” Fenech replied.

Fenech was questioned about the several occasions on which he told police he would answer at the “opportune moment”, including when he was asked about the fee paid for the murder.

“I wasn’t comfortable. The second I mentioned Keith Schembri, the atmosphere changed,” Fenech said, insisting that the interview was hostile in a way the jurors could not see from what was played to them. “I had no faith in the investigators.” Asked again in court, he said: “I have faith in the courts.”

“Keith Schembri was wise enough to keep away, and use me, Johann Cremona and Kenneth Camilleri,” Fenech said. “

Theuma’s motive, he said, was “to make friends with people in the underworld and get power with Keith Schembri. It worked because he got the pardon.”

“What if I told you that Theuma got a pardon for evidence and testimony which so many witnesses have corroborated?” Cini asked. “Because he had the Commissioner,” Fenech replied.

“So the CEO of Tumas Group became a postman?” Cini asked. “Yes,” Fenech replied.

The sitting focused on key conversations regarding the 17 Black inquiry.

It began with Cini referencing the WhatsApp group “No Valletta, No Party”, whose administrator was saved in Fenech’s phone as “Fraud”.  

The group also included Silvio Valletta, Joseph Cuschieri, then chief executive of the MFSA, and Kenneth Azzopardi, who worked in Schembri’s office. Fenech would not say who “Fraud” was; earlier testimony has indicated that Schembri was in the group.

Two voice notes from the chat were played, dated 11 August 2016 and 29 January 2019. In the second, Fenech ridicules Simon Busuttil, an “inquiry” and a box file of evidence. “It was a chat where we used to joke a lot,” he said, declining to confirm that it concerned the 17 Black inquiry. “It could be,” he added.

On that date, a request by Busuttil and David Casa for an inquiry into possible money laundering had been rejected, following revelations that 17 Black received €1.3 million from a Seychelles company owned by an Azeri national and from another company associated with the LNG tanker berthed at Delimara.

The facts, the inquiring magistrate ruled, had already formed part of an earlier inquiry. In February 2025, Fenech, Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and others were charged with bribery, corruption and other offences in connection with 17 Black.

On 29 January, Schembri sent an image of a confidential court decree relating to the 17 Black decision. This was an unsigned decree, sent more than four hours before the decision was shared with the parties involved. Fenech sent his voice note the same day.

The day before, Fenech had sent Schembri a screenshot of a chat between himself and Theuma, in which Theuma asked for help over a field. “I was a go-between for them,” Fenech said.

Cini also put to Fenech an image found on his phone listing names and dates of birth, including Roman Gusman, Alfred Degiorgio, Jamie Cella, Adrian Agius, Robert Agius, Vince Muscat, Aaron Cassar, Kevin Falzon and David Gatt, tagged with descriptions such as “executioners” and “general support including legal advice”.

Fenech told the court that Schembri had sent him the list, and confirmed that he passed on information to Theuma about the police investigation into the Maksar brothers. “Keith Schembri told me to do it,” he said.

The image, Cini said, came from a highly confidential Europol document on the murder. “I don’t know,” Fenech replied.

Fenech’s Prison & Questions of an Intimate Relationship 

Asked about Malta’s prison, Fenech denied having strong connections there. 

Fenech said he was “the most controlled” inmate. “In my division, we’re only allowed to go outside for one hour a day,” Cini said he held meetings with the prison’s head of strategy. Fenech called it “a lie”.

The claim concerns Svetlana Muscat, who allowed Fenech to meet people in her office and was placed on forced leave over the matter. “I was always escorted,” Fenech said. “There were tens of us who would go.”

He confirmed that he has a good relationship with her and maintains it to this day. Cini asked whether the relationship was intimate, drawing an angry reaction from Fenech’s lawyers. He did not answer the question.

Cini then produced the screenshot exhibited by Johann Cremona showing Reuben Farrugia with Charles Mercieca. Farrugia was one of the people who met Fenech in prison.

Fenech’s Brother and Drug Use 

Cini took Fenech through chats with his brother Franco beginning on 15 November 2019, the day after Theuma’s arrest. 

In one message, Franco sent a photograph of syringes, morphine, chemicals, cocaine detection wipes and drug tests. Another showed ecstasy pills, which Fenech said he did not recognise. “I did cocaine,” he told the court. A further photograph showed pills crushed into powder on a counter. “I don’t know,” he said.

“So you’re putting me in danger? This is my father’s office too, and I have a right to be here. I am not a warden, and I will not touch or throw away a single thing,” Franco wrote, as the brothers discussed getting clean together. “Make this office a happy, clean place like Papa used to work in.” “I didn’t go to the office to investigate. Do you know what the blue punisher is?” Fenech told the court he had never taken ecstasy.

A video filmed inside Fenech’s office, carrying his voice and sent from his phone, was played. Fenech said he had never seen it before, but confirmed that an object in it was used to “clean” his drugs. In the video, he explains rapidly how it works while snorting heavily. He put it down to paranoia. Cini suggested the process would make the drug stronger. “More healthy,” Fenech replied.

A later chat, dated 24 August 2019, was with Catherine Halpin, the chief operating officer of ElectroGas. “I was not in rehab; I was in a Houston jail,” Fenech wrote.

“Keith never told me directly. Melvin told me,” Fenech told the court, after insisting moments earlier that he had not assumed Schembri’s role but knew it.

The exchange came on a day when prosecutor Godwin Cini pressed Fenech on 17 Black, the Dubai company he owns, which was named as a target client of two Panama companies belonging to Schembri and former minister Konrad Mizzi.

“No. I knew it”

The concession came as Cini moved to dismantle the defence’s account of the relationship between Fenech and Theuma, in which the self-confessed middleman is cast as the powerful party.

Fenech said Theuma “felt powerful because he had information on Keith Schembri”, adding: “He knows who the real mastermind is. Keith is the real mastermind.”

Asked by the judge how he knew that, Fenech said Schembri had never told him and that the information had come from Theuma. Cini asked whether that meant he had assumed it. “No. I knew it,” Fenech replied. “His fingerprints are all over it,” he said, repeating a claim his defence has made throughout the trial.

Schembri, who testified over three days in July, denied any involvement in the murder.

Cross-examination began after the morning break, with Cini asking Fenech where he was on 16 October 2017, the day Caruana Galizia was killed. He said he was at home.

17 Black

Caruana Galizia was the first to write publicly about 17 Black. Fenech told jurors he had her website bookmarked and that it “could be” he had been aware she had named him in a comment on her blog, having previously testified that he only learned of that comment when he was interrogated.

He had refused to answer police questions about the company in November 2019, telling investigators he would respond at the opportune moment. Asked why he had declined to answer on a company he now describes as entirely legitimate, he said a case had been opened against him over 17 Black without anyone speaking to him once. He told the court that this trial was the moment he had meant. “I wanted to respond in a setting I trusted,” he said.

Asked what his reaction to the reporting had been, he said: “I don’t know. 

ElectroGas, corruption and 17 Black isn’t true.”

The reporting had consequences he acknowledged in writing at the time. In messages with Deo Scerri, a former Bank of Valletta chairperson, Fenech discussed a loan facility and told Scerri he did not want to abuse their friendship as long as it did not expose him. Scerri replied that the problem was not a financial one but the news reports on 17 Black.

Cini also put to Fenech a message he sent Mizzi saying he had lost his phone, and Mizzi’s reply telling him to delete WhatsApp. Fenech said he did not remember it, prompting the observation that his memory had been sharp the previous day under his own lawyer’s questioning, down to a dinner of cooked lamb. He denied the exchange had anything to do with ElectroGas, and said he had only learned of Hearnville and Tillgate, the Panama companies, through the media.

On 2 April 2019, Fenech sent a photograph of a seat number, a 17 on a black background. He confirmed the reference was to 17 Black.

“It was my right to complain”

Fenech accepted that he had close contacts with prominent figures across Maltese public life but denied taking advantage of them.

He confirmed that his communications had resulted in criminal charges against Heathcliff Farrugia, then chief executive of the Malta Gaming Authority, who was convicted on appeal over the exchanges. 

Fenech denied they were friends, describing the relationship as professional and cordial, and said his complaints had been about what he considered the unfair selection of the Portomaso Casino for a MoneyVal review. “I was just complaining. We had the best levels of compliance. It was my right to complain. I didn’t ask for anything,” he said.

Cini turned to Alfred Degiorgio’s gambling at the Portomaso Casino. A casino 

employee testified in the case against Degiorgio that in September 2018 he gambled more than €457,000 while losing €16,000, and that he gambled over €40,000 and lost €31,000 at the Oracle Casino, also owned by Fenech. Fenech said a suspicious transaction report had been raised.

On Johann Buttigieg, then head of the Planning Authority, Fenech said he had sought only general advice and played down hosting him for dinner. 

Cini put to him messages seeking help with a farmhouse tied to Theuma; a February 2019 exchange in which Fenech discussed a project after receiving what he described as a go-ahead from then prime minister Joseph Muscat, referred to as “ix-Xiħ”; and a March 2019 exchange on settling a debt involving developer Joseph Portelli, in which Fenech suggested splitting property acquired from Portelli and Buttigieg recommended a site in Qormi. 

Confronted with the suggestion that he had shared confidential information about competitors, and with inconsistencies in his account, Fenech cited the passage of time and said he had been falsely accused.

Cini then turned to Marvin Gaerty, then Commissioner for Revenue. “We had a very good relationship,” Fenech said. “I met him through music.” In the messages, Fenech told Gaerty he had brought his money in from abroad, declared it in 2016 and paid tax in full, and that “that witch” first published in 2017. Gaerty replied telling him not to worry. Fenech wrote back asking whether he had had reason to doubt when she spoke to him, again using the same word.

Fenech confirmed the reference was to Caruana Galizia. “It was a name we used in our circles. It was on TV,” he said.

The defence objected repeatedly during this line of questioning, arguing that the episodes involving Buttigieg, Farrugia and Gaerty had nothing to do with the case before the jurors.

Sources inside the police

Asked about his contacts within the police force, Fenech said he had been close to Silvio Valletta but could not remember another name. Cini reminded him that a police officer had been charged in court because of him, a reference to Raymond Aquilina, who faces bribery and corruption charges alongside Fenech.

The defence objected immediately, raising a point of law and telling the court the line of questioning was entering a red zone because those proceedings are sub judice.

When the jurors returned, Fenech said he had known Aquilina only slightly. “We met maybe five times. I don’t know the last time I met him. I don’t know why he left the force.”

He confirmed communicating with Aquilina over Signal, with messages set to disappear, and Cini presented calls between the two men made between January and July 2019. Asked why he had used Signal rather than WhatsApp, Fenech said he was not sure.

In messages ahead of Theuma’s arrest, Fenech told him to put his mind at ease, especially because of “Ray”. Fenech insisted he had never discussed Aquilina with Theuma. “I have no idea how Melvin knew Ray. He brought him up, not me.”

Shown a message to an employee instructing her to ensure that Aquilina’s name was not entered on the visitor log at Portomaso tower, Fenech confirmed the exchange.

Questioning also returned to Valletta, the former deputy commissioner who oversaw the homicide squad and sat on the board of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, which had authored a report on 17 Black and its links to suspicious payments. Valletta, whom Fenech’s children called “Uncle Silvio”, led the investigation into the murder until he was removed by court order in mid-2018. Fenech said he was aware Valletta had been working on the case.

The money and the leaks

Cini turned to the €450,000 Fenech gave Theuma, which was used to pay for the legal defence of the Degiorgio brothers. Fenech confirmed passing on the money but said it was a mischaracterisation to say he was paying the lawyers.

He played down recordings in which he coached Theuma on how to speak to the Degiorgio brothers in prison, saying he had been bluffing to keep Theuma calm.

Fenech again confirmed that he had passed Theuma extensive information about the investigation, including the raids, the arrests, the Maksar brothers and the investigation into Theuma himself. “Yes. I made a mistake,” he said. Asked whether he had been trying to disrupt the investigation, he said: “That’s right. I was trying to buy time with Melvin.”

Shown his messages to Theuma from the evening before Theuma’s arrest, Fenech said: “Everything I said, Keith told me.” He initially said he had understood only that Theuma would be arrested on money laundering charges as a ruse and had not known that Theuma’s partner and stepdaughter were under investigation. Reminded of his own messages, he shifted: “Yes, I knew they were being arrested.”

Fenech confirmed he had a WhatsApp group with Schembri and Muscat. “We were close, but I didn’t have that confidence with the PM,” he said. In a private message to Muscat dated 17 January, he said he had lost his phone but had managed to wipe it remotely.

Earlier: Fenech ends his own testimony

The morning was taken up with the closing stages of Fenech’s examination by his lawyer, Giannella de Marco, picking up from the Gozo trip and his return to Malta with his brother Franco.

He said he had spoken to his uncle Ray, who told him he had been to see Schembri. Fenech called him, concerned. “He told me, it doesn’t interest me what happened. I want to make sure you’re in the right state of mind to take his advice and lie low for a few days.”

He denied any plan to flee before his arrest at sea in November 2019. “I never wanted to escape. The intention was to travel discreetly, to get into the right frame of mind, clean myself up, consult with my lawyers, and then come back,” he said. “I knew there was going to be a massive show made of my arrest. I know what it looks like. I would rather die than escape. It never crossed my mind.”

He rejected the suggestion that a message asking his uncle to look after his children pointed to flight. “It’s something I say to my wife every day.”

Fenech said the captain of his boat, Logan Wood, had been planning to sail around that time and that they brought the trip forward to the Wednesday. “I told him to turn on the AIS and inform port control.” Wood told him there were photographers at the marina, he said, smirking as he recounted it, and he was also told the CID were in the area.

He insisted he set off at 4:30am to make use of good winter weather. “A few minutes later, I was making coffee in the galley and I started seeing lasers. I told Logan to slow down, and then suddenly a lot of lights, an AFM vessel. I was worried and they swarmed on the boat, wearing balaclavas. I didn’t know what was going on. I asked. They said I was under arrest.”

Police searched the boat, then his home, then his office. Fenech said Assistant Commissioner Keith Arnaud asked whether he needed his doctor, Adrian Vella. “When they entered my home, I got palpitations. The doctor came and gave me some medicine.” De Marco returned repeatedly to his complaint that police had taken everything, including his children’s devices.

At the depot, he said, he was in withdrawal. “I felt bad.” He said Arnaud told him there was always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Fenech was granted police bail on 21 November and said he asked for protection because he feared for himself, his wife and his children. By the evening of 23 and 24 November his anxiety was, he said, through the roof. He asked for Vella, who told him to go to hospital. It was his birthday.

Turning to the notes Schembri is alleged to have passed to him through Vella, Fenech said: “I have no doubt it was Keith’s work.” The first, he said, appeared at his home after he returned from police bail. “My wife came in and told me: here’s a note from Keith through Adrian.” He opened it with his lawyers, Gianluca Caruana Curran and Marion Camilleri. “I read it, and I wasn’t happy. I started to realise what was happening.”

He said he called Schembri, who was at Girgenti. “He told me to trust him and that it would work. I told him I didn’t like it. I was angry after that call. I knew what was happening. I realised what the game was.” He added: “I gave two versions, but like I told the police, that was not my version of events.”

Fenech described solitary confinement and conversations with a priest. “I ended my addiction the moment I gave my police statement.”

“I never paid for the murder,” he said. Asked by his own lawyer why he had withdrawn the money, he said: “I gave Melvin money because at the time he said he had got out the money, so I calmed him down and made it clear that he wouldn’t pay them.”

“None of it makes sense. Blue Elephant. During the day. I had a private office,” he said of the meeting at which Theuma says the murder was first discussed.

He described Theuma as a man he was managing rather than directing. 

“Paying him was the easiest solution to keep him calm and under control. He used to threaten that he would go to Mellieħa, Castille. He blackmailed me for money. At the end of 2018, he turned on me. I was giving him sensitive information. I chose to do so. I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Johann told me he was recording me. I was offended, disappointed. I really got scared at the end of 2018 when he got me the note.”

He closed with a message to the jurors: “I want to apologise for keeping you from your family. I continue to have faith in the court.”

“I’m 44. I work in the family business. I have a wife and two kids. I was raised in a traditional family with my brother and my parents,” Fenech opened. 

Fenech explained that he entered the family business under his uncle Ray’s wing. He then took over the group’s gaming division. When his father died in 2014, he took a step up.

The questioning quickly turned to Keith Schembri.

“The first time I met Keith, I was 9 or 10. He was seven years older than me. He lived close to us in Santa Lucija. When I started going to Paceville, I would meet Keith at the same place my brother and I went. He was closer to my brother,” Fenech said.

In 2008, when Joseph Muscat became the Opposition Leader, Fenech, along with Yorgen, was invited to a business leaders’ lunch. “I recognised Keith when I arrived, and we got talking. After that lunch, he asked to start introducing Muscat to the business community.”

From there, their friendship grew. They met regularly, both alone, with other friends, and with their families. “We were good friends,” he said.

In 2012, Fenech said, his father was diagnosed with cancer – and died in 2014. During that period, he grew closer to Schembri. “He helped me a lot. He would come for me almost every day. He was a shoulder to cry on. He would give me advice and support,” he said. “He was like my brother.”

“He was young, self-made, successful. He was a political operator. At the same time, he was very happy-go-lucky, nice to everyone. I admired him. I looked up to him,: Fenech added.

In 2013, the year the Labour Party was elected to government, Fenech said he was approached to join a consortium for the gas-to-energy power plant, which would later become Electrogas. “I took over the project,” he said.

The questioning moved to 2016 and Keith Schembri’s cancer diagnosis. He said that he introduced Schembri to doctors and medical experts. “I had gone through it with my father, so I had good contacts; we ended up going to the Mayo Clinic in the USA with Dr Adrian Vella.” Fenech placed this trip around Donald Trump’s election win in November 2016.

De Marco then moved on to Fenech’s “ranch” in Haz-Zebbug. He described it as a “refuge” that he used to have lunches with family and friends, including Keith Schembri.

He said that upon their return from the USA, Schembri told Fenech to get a lamb dinner. Fenech said he contacted Melvin Theuma to provide the meat. He said he knew Theuma from Marsa, where Theuma worked as a bookmaker.

“Around 2011-12, I was in the office with Uncle Ray. Melvin came looking for him. He told me that he had got a taxi and wanted to see if he could operate from the Hilton,” he said. “After we extended the hotel, we brought him onto our roster.”

Returning to 2016, Fenech said that the dinner happened on a Thursday afternoon. It was a casual dinner, he said, with his uncle, cousins, and Keith Schembri. “I told Melvin he could join,” he added. 

“The discussion on the table was a Daphne blog post on Keith Schembri’s diagnosis. We spoke about it. Keith was emotional. The personal level of the attacks was bothering him,” Fenech said. 

“We ended up just myself, Keith and Melvin at the table. We started speaking about the blog again. Out of nowhere, Melvin said, “We can get rid of her quickly”. I didn’t pay much attention. I went for a cigarette, and they continued talking. This was around mid-November 2016.”

“A few weeks passed. Melvin was taking me to the airport. The second I got into the car, he told me that there was a plan to murder Daphne.  He told me they needed 120,000. I called Keith and asked him what they spoke about that evening. He told me, “Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead”. I felt heavy; I would never have thought I would be involved.”

“When he collected me on my return from the airport, he told me that he gave them €30,000 for the murder, and then we can sort it out. He said he went on my word, and he started going crazy. I panicked. I told him that we misunderstood one another, but to stop this now. I gave him €50,000 from my safe in my office. I gave him €50,000 so he could have an extra €20,000 to make sure he wasn’t put out by it…and that’s all I thought of it. I told Keith about it; he told me that I did the right thing – and that was that.”

In mid-February 2017, Fenech said Melvin Theuma called him and asked for a favour: to help him get through to the Customer Care Office in Castille. He said Theuma called a day or two later, asking how to enter the office. Fenech called Schembri to find him. “Melvin was over the moon because they gave him the job,” Fenech said. “He told me that he would never go.”

De Marco put Theuma’s timeline to Fenech, namely, how the plot began around mid-April, when the businessman ordered the assassination outside the Blue Elephant at the Hilton.

“I never ordered the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. I had no involvement. Zero,” he said. 

Fenech said that in April he was abroad in America for “almost one month.” The defence presented an image from a cruise trip they went on between 15th and 22nd April 2017, along with a visa stamp showing his arrival in America on 7th April 2017 and return on 2nd May through the UAE. 

“It makes no sense. He said I mentioned George ic-Ciniz. The first time I ever heard that name was when they arrested him on 4th December.”

“How did you enter this story?” De Marco asked.

“Until November 2017, I was not in the story. At the end of November, Keith Schembri came to me, agitated; he told me that he needed to pass a message on to Melvin. My heart sank. It had just happened. I had heard that discussion. Keith had an obsession with her. You need to speak to Melvin and tell him that the police are very close to catching the “clique” of the Potato Shed,” Fenech said. 

“It was the biggest mistake of my life, because I accepted that I would pass on the message,” he added. 

“When I told Melvin, he told me not to care. I relayed the message back to Keith. He told me no – that there is evidence of the message used to detonate the bomb, the bomb they were on, the burner phones…and how one of them topped up their phones. I went and passed the information to Melvin, including that they would be arrested on 4th December.”

“I did it out of a distorted sense of loyalty, to someone I thought was a friend,” Fenech said of Keith. “In my worst times, I always found him there.”

“I ended up in drug addiction. I spent years fighting it because of my brother – and I ended up there because I couldn’t handle it.”

“Then a diatribe of Melvin. I would find him near my office. Panicking. Tell me he would go to Castille, to there. It was an escalation. At the start, he was manageable, and then it went to a new level in April 2018 when Keith told me to inform him that one of the hitmen was speaking with Keith Arnaud. I told him. He was talking about betrayal. He told me that I betrayed him. Asking me why I got him into this. He got it into his head that Keith was betraying him, that I was part of it. I tried to convince him it wasn’t the case, and I would pass on information.”

Fenech went on to say that over this period, Schembri sent Kenneth Camilleri to “calm down” Melvin Theuma, and there was a discussion regarding a promise to bail out the DeGiorgio brothers. “I found out about this after, through Melvin, Keith and Johann (Johann Cremona).”

Cremona is a business partner of Fenech who rented a space from Theuma in Marsa. 

The questions turned to the tapes. “The situation was unbearable. It was so out of character that drugs became my escape. You try to numb yourself. The moment I was arrested, I felt I would be free to talk about the things bothering me.”

Fenech confirmed that he went to two rehabs to help curb his addiction. He said this was in 2019. He claimed that he would also purchase cocaine from Melvin Theuma. 

“My life was over. I wouldn’t go to work. I wouldn’t see my family,” he said, as he attempted to cry on the stand. “I didn’t have the tools to deal with these people”.

Questions then turned towards his involvement with ElectroGas. He defended the project and said he “remained quiet”. He said it was one of the most scrutinised deals in the country’s history. 

He confirmed that he was aware that Daphne had acquired a cache of leaks from ElectroGas. However, he insisted that he discovered this in December 2017. 

He said that 17 Black, his UAE company, had nothing to do with ElectroGas. He insisted that he opened it to set up business in that area. He insisted that it wasn’t a secret company. 

Fenech insisted that he never informed Melvin Theuma of his impending arrest, claiming that it came from Edwin Brincat. He claimed that Theuma was blackmailing him.

He said that one day, before he discovered he was being recorded, Theuma came to the office and asked for his favour and for €50,000 to help the Degiorgio brothers. Fenech said he refused, and Theuma complained. Later, Schembri told him to give him the money. He did.

He confirmed that on another occasion, Melvin asked for €60,000 to help with the bail request. He claimed he spoke to Keith Schembri, who sent him around €75,000 to €80,000  in a Reebok bag. 

Theuma’s letter, which named both Fenech and Schembri and included some of the recordings, was handed to Fenech around October 2018. 

“I was wrong to say Theuma threatened me. I wasn’t physically scared. From that day I was worried,” he said. “I told Keith. He came immediately. 

Next up was Dr Adrian Vella, the trip to Gozo, and the note he allegedly passed to Fenech, allegedly from Schembri.

He claimed that it was the Friday after Theuma’s arrest. Schembri called him up and said they needed to speak about it. Fenech said Vella recognised his drug problems, that he spoke to Keith and said it would be good to take a break in Gozo. 

“I knew what was going on from the moment Melvin was arrested,” he said.

Fenech claimed that Vella abandoned him at the residence in Gozo – and that he had given him medication to help with the stress. He said that Vella brought him a passport. 

He claimed that Vella suggested David Gatt as a lawyer, but told the court that he felt he should choose his own. He said he was on cocaine and felt paranoid, and called his brother to collect him. 

Fenech’s testimony ended there and will continue tomorrow.

Andrew Caruana Galizia told jurors that his mother had established that Yorgen Fenech was the owner of 17 Black about a year before she was assassinated, in testimony that was interrupted by the defence.

Caruana Galizia, the second of the journalist’s three sons, was giving evidence for the first time in the trial. Fenech has pleaded not guilty to complicity in the 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

He told the court he had returned to Malta from New Delhi in June 2017 and was living in Floriana and working at the foreign ministry when his mother was killed that October. He said he saw her every weekend and that they spoke regularly about her work.

Her last open investigation, he said, was the ElectroGas leak, a cache of emails he testified she had been receiving from inside the consortium. For her, he said, the missing piece was the interface between ElectroGas and the government of the day, which was driving the project and owned 17 Black.

“I was not 3, I was 30, I am a Maltese citizen, I read what she wrote,” he told the court.

He said one red line between them was her sources, which he never wanted to know, but otherwise he knew who owned the company. She had her suspicions, he said, and a year before she was assassinated she found out it was Fenech.

Fenech, he testified, was a co-owner of ElectroGas who received a million euros each time the project hit a milestone. While the other shareholders were paid the same, he was the only shareholder dealing directly with the government. Asked about New Energy Supply, he said his mother had told him it was Fenech’s way of receiving money from the government.

He also testified about the family’s pursuit of Siemens, which holds a third of ElectroGas. After several years, he said, the company agreed to mediation, and the family travelled to Berlin to meet senior directors.

He told the court Siemens were shocked to discover that Fenech was involved in ElectroGas and wanted to exit their shareholding, but that the government pressured them, and that a waiver of 40 million euros was involved. Most of the Siemens people connected to ElectroGas were dismissed, he said.

Defence lawyer Charles Mercieca objected repeatedly that the witness was giving opinion and hearsay rather than facts within his own knowledge, and that he was testifying on documents that are not part of the case.

The exchanges escalated. Prosecutor Cini said in front of the jury that the defence was constantly obstructing the victim’s son. The court fined him 50 euros. Mercieca said the defence would seek to dissolve the jury if the conduct continued.

Daphne’s final weeks

His account of his mother’s final days went unchallenged. He said that he worried for her for the first time around two Sundays before her death. She always maintained a front, he said, but that day was different, and she told him they were trying to fry her alive. He said she was barely leaving the house and had begun parking her car behind the gate, something she had never done.

On the last Sunday, she came to say goodbye at the Floriana house he was restoring. She hugged him, walked to the door, and hugged him again. 

He said she was good company, funny, and the person he relied on for advice about marriage, his career, and having children. He said he misses her as a friend, as an adviser and as a reference point, and that even though the sons were adults when she was killed, she left an enormous hole in their lives.

The following afternoon his brother Matthew called to say there had been an explosion up the road, and told him to fetch their father. He said his mother’s phone was off. 

At the house, he said, his father asked Superintendent Kurt Zahra where she was, and Zahra confirmed she had been murdered.

There was no time to grieve, he said, because a narrative about diesel smugglers had to be answered immediately, and the family knew it was not true.

Headlines on the jurors’ tablets

Court expert Martin Bajada presented his findings on whether jurors had access to media reports during the trial. He confirmed that the tablets pulled automatic Google updates when PDFs were loaded, so headlines, photos, and bylines from news sites could surface. However, the underlying articles could not be opened.

The examination covered a nine-day review that produced 489 pages of headlines. Only one headline in the period from 1st July to date carried a reference to a pardon, and it appeared after the 18th and after Fenech’s statement had been heard in court. Internet access has now been restricted on the devices. 

Zahra cross-examination continues

The sitting also saw defence lawyer Giannella De Marco continue her cross-examination of Superintendent Kurt Zahra, pressing him on lines of inquiry the police did not pursue.

Zahra said he had not spoken to staff at the Blue Elephant, where Melvin Theuma has testified that Yorgen Fenech first ordered the murder. He said he had not spoken to the Degiorgio brothers’ lawyer about a receipt for legal payments.

Throughout, Zahra repeatedly said that Keith Arnaud had been leading the investigation and that he could not answer for parts of it.

The trial continues with the defence’s witnesses.

Inspector Kurt Zahra continued his testimony, building on Yorgen Fenech’s police statement shown to jurors the previous day.

He revealed that Keith Schembri was never arrested in connection with the murder or considered a suspect, but was prompted by the letter that was allegedly passed on to Fenech via their shared doctor, Adrian Vella, along with leaking information to Yorgen Fenech.

He confirmed the searches that took place at Schembri’s home and office, revealing that police seized a single sheet of paper from Schembri’s office – an article by Daphne Caruana Galizia naming Pierre Darmanin’s alleged involvement in oil smuggling. Under cross-examination, Zahra said the file with her articles was not of interest to the homicide investigation. 

He faced further questioning from the defence on his role in the arrest and search of Keith Schembri’s home. He said they were there for three hours.

“We were looking for anything that could be related to the case. His mobile, his laptop, papers with mobile numbers, that sort of thing,” Zahra said, but conceded that they seized nothing from the property.

He also confirmed that Schembri’s office was searched seven days later. 

Zahra also presented evidence regarding Fenech’s interactions with Castille, the office of the Prime Minister. Call data confirmed that in 2019, Fenech visited Castille six times. Fenech told investigators he visited three times a week.

The defence began the cross-examination aggressively, accusing Zahra of lying, claiming that Vince Muscat said the murder would not have been possible with Melvin Theuma. However, on examination, the judge ruled that it was not the case, and asked the defence to apologise.

Zahra maintained that he was never present for the meetings in Castille and was only aware that Schembri’s name was mentioned in intercepts and not the recordings.

Zahra walked jurors through the evening before Yorgen Fenech’s arrest and the businessman’s alleged attempt to escape the island.

He referred to chats between Yorgen and his uncle, Ray Fenech, over “developments”.   Ray told Fenech to “go to a safe place” and “book a flight to Paris”. Ray asked Yorgen to “speak to K” about leaving through the airport; Yorgen says it’s safer to escape by boat

Zahra confirmed that he was outside the murder investigation for roughly two years, from Silvio Valletta’s departure in June 2018 until Theuma’s arrest in November 2019.

He said he had never seen a Europol report dated 14 May 2018 which drew up a list of possible instigators from Caruana Galizia’s blog.

The Hitmen’s Inconsistencies

Zahra corroborated that the hitmen did not speak to police upon their arrest. It changed in April 2018 when Vince Muscat approached investigators. He also confirmed that the Degiorgios told Muscat to stop.

The Degiorgios, he said, requested a pardon for every crime they committed right up until 2017, after they  pleaded guilty to their role in the murder,

He revealed that George Degiorgio confirmed they received € 150,000 from Melvin Theuma and that he never met Yorgen Fenech. However, he spoke more about a 2015 plan to murder Daphne, which he said involved David Gatt, Chris Cardona, Keith Schembri and Lawrnece Cutajar and where a €50,000 deposit was paid.

Degiorgio refused to provide details on the 2017 murder. Muscat, Zahra said, told police that the 2015 plan had nothing to do with 2017. He added that the Degiorgio brothers provided conflicting accounts, including mentioning people who were already dead at the time.

Zahra revealed that investigations into the 2015 plot are ongoing and that Cardona has been interrogated over the matter.

Social Media Posts

The session kicked off with the defence raising with the court concerns over social media posts shared by Jason Azzopardi, a parte civile lawyer. The post, Azzopardi explained, was a reshare of a post by Matthew Caruana Galizia, Daphne’s son, claiming that the defence was running its own social media campaign.

The judge warned that he could not comment on proceedings. She noted that the court could not censor journalistic reports of what was said in open court, but stressed the right to be presumed innocent. 

Defence lawyer Charles Mercieca raised further concerns that jurors’ court-provided digital tablets could read news reports. It was later clarified that websites are blocked, but certain headlines could still be read. The devices were confiscated pending review.

The recordings cover two days of questioning by Superintendent Kurt Zahra at police headquarters, beginning on 29 November 2019 and continuing through the following day. In the first, Fenech is wearing a black polo-neck sweater and black trousers, sitting in a fluorescent-lit interrogation room. In the second, he sports a white shirt and navy blazer. 

‘Everything started with Keith Schembri’

“Everything started with Keith Schembri. It’s a disgrace that I’m sitting here today and not Mr Keith Schembri. The police are doing everything, everything, to shield him,” Fenech tells investigators at the start of the tape. He said he offered evidence on corruption, but police refused to hear him.

He claimed three people came to know that Schembri had wanted Daphne murdered: then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Johann Cremona and Adrian Vella. He was insistent on the qualification, repeating it in both sessions: none of the three knew beforehand, only afterwards.

“I was commissioned by Keith Schembri, who had been long asking to find someone to murder him because she was a nuisance…and not just for him…since 2014,” he said.

Schembri, Fenech told investigators, was angry with Daphne’s articles – and had even told him that he had paid “someone” €30,000 to have her murdered in 2015. That plan never materialised, but Fenech said that Schembri continued to pester him to “find somebody”.

“He was pushing for this murder. I was never the one who sent [anyone] or did anything. [Those three people] know Keith Schembri’s involvement from A to Z,” Genech said later in interrogation.

The plot, according to Fenech

The issue came up again over a meal at Fenech’s ranch in Ħaż-Żebbuġ, weeks after he and Schembri had returned from a trip to the United States. Theuma was among the guests. Driving him home afterwards, Fenech said, Theuma told him: “We’ll get rid of her quickly.”

Fenech told police that days later, on the way to the airport, Theuma said he had spoken to a “clique” of friends who were ready to do it and already had a plan.

“I had no interest in knowing who they were,” Fenech said. He told Theuma he would get back to him, and put it to Schembri, who told him: “Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead” (mexxi mexxi mexxi). On the drive back from the airport, Theuma told him his share would be €120,000.

Asked repeatedly whether he had paid it, Fenech said only that he would answer “at the opportune moment”. He disputed Theuma’s figures outright: “The figures are wrong too, because it was 120 and not 150. It went up to 150 afterwards.”

“After two days, I told Theuma to stop everything. I gave him €50,000 and told him to take it, but I told them it wasn’t for the job because I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He told me he had paid for it himself…but that’s not why I gave them to him.”

“I gave them to him because he told me he was under obligation to these people, and I am not into these sorts of things… he had told me that he took 30k out of his own pocket… and to be honest I didn’t know who they were, and I told him ‘I will give you more, but I don’t want to have anything to do with it’…”Fenech said.

“Did you know that the money he committed to was for Daphne’s murder?’ Zahra asked. “ From what he told me, obviously…” Fenech replied.

‘Are you aware of any other money to have Daphne killed?’ Zahra asked. “We will discuss those later because I’m not feeling comfortable,” Fenech replied.

Fenech Rejects Melvin Theuma’s Timeline, Evidence Backs Theuma 

Fenech was then confronted with Theuma’s timeline, namely the meeting at Blue Elephant where, according to Theuma, he first ordered the assassination of Daphne.

Fenech was asked directly about Theuma’s timeline – and whether he ordered the murder in early 2017 after Daphne’s blog post mentioning 17 Black. Fenech denied it outright. “I will say it again…no,” Fenech said, insisting that the murder was planned towards the end of 2016. “I just gave [Melvin] the money,” he added.

He denied Theuma’s entire timeline – that the murder was first planned in April 2017, put on hold once the election was called, and then restarted after the Labour Party won the election. He rejected Theuma’s testimony that he provided the money to the hitmen and the steps taken towards the murder.

He insisted that he did not know Daphne – and denied that the murder had anything to do with 17 Black. “The allegation was with John Dalli,” he said.

Zahra later noted that evidence shows that the murder plot began in 2017; this includes the burner phones used by the hitmen being purchased – and recorded conversations and messages between Fenech and Theuma.

Payments to the Hitmen

Fenech was asked about his payments to the hitmen via Theuma.

“Melvin Theuma told you that the Degiorgios and Vince Muscat were asking him for money after their arrest. He would tell you they needed the money – and you would give him the money,” Zahra said. “Yes…but not necessarily, as he was passing them the Degiorgio’s brother.”

Asked why Theuma kept coming to him for money, Fenech said Theuma told him the executors were asking him to cover expenses.

Pressed on why Theuma came to him, he said: “Because he was blackmailing me.” Asked how, he refused to answer, saying repeatedly that he would respond “at the opportune moment and the appropriate stage”; a formula he used dozens of times across the two days whenever the questions turned to the money.

“I’ve been through an ordeal for more than two years – Melvin kept coming to me for money. Once, I was so drained that I called Keith Schembri and told him I’m exhausted. He said, ‘Now I’ll get something; I’ll put up something myself, because this isn’t right’. He brought me a Reebok bag to the office with between €75,000 and €85,000 in it.”

He did confirm, though, that he had passed on money to Theuma, saying outright that he provided at least “€400,000” to Theuma, as part of payments to the hitmen while in prison, but again insisted that Theuma was blackmailing him. “I was scared that he was blackmailing me over my drug addiction. He’s a really disgusting person….I was scared, but I’ll tell you why at an opportune moment.”

“But why did you do it?” Fenech was asked again. “I did it to protect Keith Schembri… these are the worst people in Malta,” Fenech said. “Melvin was blackmailing me because he recorded me. He threatened me. He said he would go to Castille, that he would go to Mellieha, to Keith’s house. Once I found it near Portomaso, where my kids would be picked up from school. And another time, with a gun on a table.”

Allegations of blackmail and threats

Fenech told police that Theuma once threatened him with a firearm. He said that Theuma had boasted about “a book of recordings on you” on “Fenech. There aren’t just one or two of them,” Fenech said, adding that there were times he knew he was being recorded and times he did not.

“So you knew you were being recorded, and you never told him to put the weapon down?” Zahra asked. ”Do you understand what it means to be blackmailed?” Fenech replied. “I’m not someone who scares easily, but I’m not that type; I don’t have that stomach. I have two small children, I have a life, and I was scared. Very scared. And that’s why I was also afraid for Keith Schembri and tried to protect him as much as I could – I didn’t want him to come face to face with those people.”

“Didn’t you say anything to him when he got out the gun?” Zahra asked. “You weren’t in my shoes,” Fenech replied.

Zahra later said police investigated the allegation. He reiterated that Fenech never mentioned the threats he was receiving in the recordings – and that Fenech continued to use Theuma as a driver for himself, his wife and his two young children.

Confronted with the recordings & Keith Schembri claims

Yorgen Fenech was confronted with a series of recordings. “I never heard the recordings Melvin gave me. Honestly, I don’t remember,” he said.

The primary two were: “Whoever arranged the thing has less trouble than whoever did it.”  and “you took the person from A to Z”

“Who were you referring to?” Zahra asked. “Keith Schembri,” Fenech replied. “We will talk at a more advanced stage because I know where you are heading”.

Explaining the conversation, Fenech told Zahra that Johann Cremona was brought into the post-murder plot by Keith Schembri.

“[Johann] told me that this Kenneth [Camilleri, then-Joseph Muscat’s security guard] had promised certain things to Melvin on behalf of Keith Schembri. Who is, in fact, the same person who brought me into it, Keith Schembri. The same thing,” Fenech said, adding that it was Cremona who informed him that he was being recorded.

Another key phrase Yorgen Fenech is confronted with is: “What do you expect me to do, go before the judge and tell him I did it?” Zahra said that was Yorgen admitting to the murder, but Fenech insisted he was just joking.

“In all the recordings, you never mentioned Keith; rather, you are taking responsibility…” Zahra said. “No, no, it never started with me…I never mentioned him because I was protecting him…” Fenech replied.

Asked directly by Zahra why he never mentioned Schembri as the person who commissioned the murder in any of the recordings, Fenech said:

“Keith Schembri was like my brother. I loved him and respected him like my brother. I protected him from Melvin Theuma – and those recordings confirm that. I did everything I could to protect Keith Schembri, right up until last Sunday, when he passed me that script. He spoke to me from Girgenti and told me, ‘Rest assured, with this script you’ll get a pardon’ – and since I didn’t get it, I feel betrayed. My word is not a contract or a pact, so I no longer feel bound by it.”

Zahra put it to him that by never naming Schembri he had effectively “committed suicide”. “Of course I committed suicide,” Fenech replied. “Because I had honour, I had honour.

When Zahra said his account was “laughable”, Fenech accused the police of following “the State’s script – for Keith Schembri and Joseph Muscat”. “Bring in Joseph Muscat, bring him in, and we’ll see if it’s true. Confront him with me. This is my life. It’s not your life, it’s my life.”

The Castille job, Leaks, the alleged cover-up

Fenech claimed Theuma knew of Schembri’s involvement, and that Schembri had arranged a government job for him to keep him quiet.

“When he started threatening me, I told Keith, and Keith said, ‘Send him to me at Castille’. Melvin Theuma went to Castille and was given a government job…a job he never turned up for. On the same day, Keith Schembri and Melvin Theuma had a photo taken together inside Castille, arm in arm. Melvin brought me that photo to threaten me, and it stayed in my office.”

“Melvin Theuma knew that Schembri… it wasn’t a coincidence that he wrote his name in the note…that he gave Theuma a job in Castille after the murder to keep his mouth shut,” Fenech says in the tape. 

In court, Zahra said that detail showed Fenech’s inconsistencies, since Theuma was given the job months before the assassination.

“I was given details from Keith Schembri that il-Koħħu (Vince Muscat) was negotiating a pardon. I told Keith that Melvin didn’t believe it. I didn’t know Kenneth Camilleri, but it turned out he was Joseph Muscat’s driver. Keith confirmed to me that he sent Kenneth. I told Keith that Melvin was panicking – and then he told me that our mobile phones were wiretapped.”

Fenech told investigators that Schembri had even once planned to kill Theuma and had even sent Kenneth Camilleri to do it, but had stopped when Theuma was present with his son. “Theuma didn’t trust Schembri because of the bail pledge”.

He added that Schembri provided him with extensive information on the murder investigation, including Theuma’s arrest. He confirmed that he was the one to inform Theuma that he, his partner and stepdaughter would be arrested. 

He also confirmed that he gave Theuma a copy of his pardon, which he said Schembri handed to him. He said the copy was with his lawyer. Dr Marion Camilleri, one of his lawyers, interjected twice, saying she had been present and could testify to it.

Investigators told him Europol was searching his computer and phone to trace how the document reached him. “Did he send it to me by ghost?” Fenech asked, before adding that it came “over Signal; it disappears.”.

Joseph Muscat 

Fenech alleged that in January 2019, he was summoned to Castille, along with Keith Schembri. There, Muscat asked whether he knew Melvin Theuma and whether Schembri’s name appeared in his secret recordings. Muscat, Fenech said, also told him that Theuma’s arrest was “inevitable”, that Europol were listening, and it would happen by June.

He went further, telling police that Muscat had twice warned him about the investigation and told him to “keep Melvin Theuma in check”, and that the Prime Minister “obviously had an interest in protecting Keith”. Fenech said he reassured Muscat: “Rest assured that as much as possible I’m keeping him out. I’m keeping him out as much as I can, Prim. But more than that I couldn’t do.”

“[Joseph Muscat] knew because he sent for me once, and another time I was at his birthday party at Girgenti [In 2019]. And as I was walking into Girgenti for the party, he met me upstairs, and he spoke to me.”

“He spoke to me about Melvin Theuma and asked me, “This guy is talking a lot of nonsense,” and he told me how much stuff he has on Keith, and I reassured him and told him: “Rest assured that I am protecting Keith as much as possible, etc., etc.”

“He told me: Something definitely has to be done about this guy; a raid definitely has to be carried out on him because there is a lot of pressure from abroad, etc. Make sure you control him so that when they go after him and carry out the raid, they don’t find anything, etc.”

“At the opportune moment, I’ll go into more detail.” However, Zahra explained that messages between Fenech and Muscat showed that they did not actually communicate in person that day.

At the second meeting, Fenech said Muscat called for him personally to come to Castille. He said Muscat asked him whether he trusted Melvin Theuma. Fenech said he didn’t, given that he was recording him. “[Muscat] told me that Theuma was talking a lot of rubbish on the phone,” Fenech told investigators.

“[Theuma] was talking about this crime and betrayal and not betrayal, going up and down, and he started sending these subtle messages, etc., to blackmail, and the Prime Minister was worried—that’s how I found out that the Prime Minister had found out about Keith. Because the Prime Minister was primarily worried about Keith.”

“He had told me: “Does he have a lot on this guy, and is he mentioning him a lot in the recordings?” I had told him, and it’s true, because, in fact, as it really is, I protect [Keith] as much as possible.”

He was asked why he never mentioned this while he was requesting a pardon.

“Out of a sense of responsibility, because it’s not nice to reach the point where you mention the Prime Minister of the country. Rest assured, I am telling the truth, and the truth will come out. I am one hundred per cent convinced that the truth will come out. I am not saying that the Prime Minister was involved in the plot; let’s be clear. And I am not saying that the Prime Minister knew beforehand; let’s be crystal clear. I am saying that the Prime Minister knew afterwards and spoke to me twice. And he never spoke to me again after that day,” he said

The night of the arrest

Fenech also confirmed that he had spoken to Keith Schembri for roughly 30 minutes the evening before his arrest. Evidence presented at trial shows that Schembri and Fenech had a 24-minute phone call and exchanged several messages. He insisted that he had no plans to escape, but Schembri and Dr Adrian Vella told him to abscond to Tunisia.

“Keith Schembri wanted me to escape the country. I didn’t even know where I was going; I thought I was going to Gozo,” Fenech said. He said he had never intended to accept: “If I wanted to escape by boat, would I escape with €6,000?”

Fenech repeatedly tried to return to the night his yacht was intercepted off Malta – “shall we continue on Pozzallo?” – describing armed officers boarding “with lasers and guns, as if they were chasing Somalis” at four in the morning, and insisting he had alerted Valletta Port Control himself.

Fenech Claims He Had Evidence of Corruption In Closing Remarks

Fenech ended his interrogation with some closing remarks to

“I’m disappointed that the attitude toward me telling the truth was hostile – and that my version that it was Keith Schembri isn’t taken seriously – and, as I explained, I only realised that Keith Schembri was betraying me after the script.”

“Five days ago, we said that we were going to speak about the major corruption that exists in this country with evidence: with evidence of bank transactions, with evidence of events as they happened one after the other, the details; and I was ready to take responsibility for them. And since Monday, I’m still waiting for Assistant Commissioner Ian Abdilla,” he says towards the end of his interrogation.

“You have four different versions of events,” Zahra tells him. “I gave the version of Keith Schembri,” Fenech replies.

“You know what I would like to add? That I am disappointed, truly disappointed. I was always proud to be Maltese, and I am no longer proud to be Maltese, because this is an absolute, pathetic cover-up. But I am also convinced; I will have said it all; I have faith in the Court, and I am convinced that you will bring out the truth.”

On 29th November, Fenech’s lawyers asked that the police present at his house be removed. Zahra explained that officers feared Fenech would attempt to escape. That evening, Zahra took an audiovisual statement of Fenech, in the presence of his lawyers. That Audiovisual recording of Fenech’s statement to police was described and then shown to jurors. 

“At first, he began speaking about what he wanted to speak about and not answer my questions about the murder. Whenever I asked him about the murder, he told me that I wasn’t listening and that I was defending the government. “I wasn’t going to let me manipulate me during my own interrogation. You had to continue asking, especially questions about the murder,” Zahra explained

“[Yorgen Fenech] told us that the plan to murder Daphne didn’t begin with him, and that Keith Schembri started it. He told us that around October or November 2016, he was at the ranch in Haz-Zebbug with Melvin Theuma, Keith Schembri and others. There, they were speaking about Daphne and the damage she was doing to the government and Keith Schembri, who was sick at the time. Fenech told us that when Melvin dropped him off at home, he said they could get rid of her quickly. 

“Yorgen Fenech told us that while driving him to the airport, Melvin Theuma told him that he knew some people who would kill Daphne. Yorgen told us that he told Melvin he would speak to him about it. He told us that when Melvin Theuma picked him up, he mentioned the €150,000 fee.”

“Yorgen told us that he told him no – and that he went to Keith Schembri, who then told him “mexxi, mexxi” and to proceed with it. He said he said ok and went to speak to Theuma and gave him €50,000 for it but wanted nothing to do with it.”

“Yorgen Fenech confirmed that he passed a substantial amount of money to the hitmen after the murder. I asked him, what obligation did you have to do it? He said he wanted to protect Keith Schembri. He also said he felt threatened by Melvin Theuma…but there were inconsistencies.” Zahra was saying when he was cut off by the defence. “We’ll see in the recording,” Zahra told them.

“Fenech said that Keith Schembri had wanted to kill Daphne since 2014/2015 and had paid €30,000 around that time, but the plan never materialised. He told us that Schembri gave him between €75,000 and €80,000 in a Reebok bag for the murder.

“I asked him why he never mentioned Keith Schembri in the recordings. Yorgen told me that he wanted to protect Keith Schembri.”

“He also told me that he and his family were threatened by Theuma – but messages showed that Theuma was picking up Fenech and his kids right up until the arrest.”

“Fenech also mentioned Joseph Muscat, Adrian Vella and Johann Cremona – but he said they all knew about the plot after the murder”

Zahra also added that Fenech denied attempting to escape. 

Inspector Kurt Zahra joined the homicide department in 2017 and has been in the corps for 24 years.  He has been on the case since 16th October 2017, the day of Daphne’s murder. He had been in the department for around 7 years. Received a call about the incident at 3:10 pm – a few minutes after the bomb.

Zahra walked the jurors through the investigation into Daphne’s murder: from the preliminary stages to the hitmen, the middleman Melvin Theuma and the accused Yorgen Fenech, repeating and corroborating previous testimony & timelines given by other police officers, experts and witnesses. This included the plot to murder Daphne, the payments to the hitmen, both for the assassination and while they were in prison, and the contents of Theuma’s evidence box.

Zahra explained that between 20th and 29th November, Fenech was granted police bail pending investigations and had not taken a full statement. Zahra told the jurors that police brought at least 30 different people for interrogation, based upon the information provided by both Fenech and Theuma. 

On 25th November, Fenech informed Zahra and investigators that the previous day, Dr Adrian Vella passed on notes with a script from Keith Schembri on what Fenech should say. The document had two fonts: one printed and another handwritten by Fenech. It was previously revealed that the document detailed a plot to frame then-Minister Chris Cardona. 

“Vella told us that when Yorgen received the notes, he began writing and said: If I’m going down, I’m taking them down with me,” Zahra told the court. 

Vella confirmed passing on the notes but has insisted he didn’t know what was in the documents. At the same time, Schembri has also denied sending the letter and said Vella had collected medical documents.

Fenech told investigators that on the 19th November, he was speaking to Keith Schembri. This was documented in a series of messages and call logs already presented to the court. 

On Vella, Zahra confirmed several details beyond the notes, namely the episodes at his Gozo residence with Yorgen and Franco Fenech. This includes fantastical cocaine-fuelled plots to escape the island – and even a claim that Fenech and Schembri communicated on the phone while on the way up to Gozo.

Fenech, on his part, has denied all claims that he was trying to escape the island. 

Police investigated the claims. Zahra insisted that before the 25th November, Schembri was not considered a person of interest in the murder itself. That changed after Fenech’s statement. He detailed the arrests of Vella and, later, Schembri. 

Zahra was with Arnaud for Schembri’s arrest, which has been under intense scrutiny throughout the trial. Schembri was arrested at 6:15 am on 26th November. He told them he had resigned as Chief of Staff that evening and that he had “lost” his mobile phone after police could not find it during their search. He added that a separate team conducted another search to seize all devices in Schembri’s home. 

“We explained to Ketih Schembri what was going to happen. We told him to indicate which devices to take. Schembri told scene-of-crime officers not to take one of the laptops as it was his daughter’s, but we refused that request and took five devices,” Zahra explained. 

Zahra faced direct questions on the two mobile phones that appeared on photos from scene-of-crime officers. 

“We had already done a search, and we knew what was in the house and what we needed to seize. There were no mobile phones when we did the search in the morning. I can’t tell you who the phone belonged to, but in the second search there were family members present, and since police didn’t seize them, it’s assumed they belonged to them,” Zahra said.

This included Theuma naming Schembri as one of the masterminds in a handwritten note to Fenech.

Theuma repeatedly said that he had only assumed Schembri was involved because of his close relationship with Fenech and his role in the alleged plot to secure bail for the Degiorgio brothers.

“Yes, I lied,” Theuma told jurors. “[Schembri] never mentioned Daphne to me or gave me the money to do it – that was Yorgen Fenech,” he said. 

“You can put me in prison. But Keith Schembri was not involved. I have to tell the truth to get my pardon – and that’s what I am doing.”

“So many people lied in this trial,” Theuma added when asked about other figures who have featured in the case, like Kenneth Camilleri and Johann Cremona – who he said were more involved than they let on under oath. He insisted that Schembri sent Kenneth Camilleri.

He also reiterated that Yorgen Fenech and Johann Cremona informed him of his impending arrest. He also added that he was aware of the police investigation once the bank rescinded a sanction letter.

“Everything Johann said about the raids happened,” he said.

Under questioning, he also revealed that Assistant Police Commissioner Mario Tonna provided him with information on the arrest of the three hitmen: Alfred Degiorgio, George Degiorgio, Vince Muscat – just days after the raid on the Marsa Potato Shed. 

Theuma told the court that he was trying to find out whether investigators had discovered the burner phone he used to communicate with Alfred Degiorgio.

He insisted that Tonna never asked for the information – and revealed that Theuma had once provided Tonna with financial assistance.

“I’ll admit that I gave him something when he was going through a bad time. But that day I gave him nothing,” Theuma said,

On his connections with Lawrence Cutajar, he once again stressed that he “bluffed” his links to the then-Police Commissioner. He told the defence lawyers that he felt he had a good chance of getting a pardon given the evidence he had.

“If I didn’t have the recordings, I would be six feet under,” he said.

Theuma also faced questions over his involvement in three crimes listed in his pardon: the 2007 HSBC heist, the 2010 Casino di Valletta heist, and the failed 2010 robbery of HSBC.

Theuma clarified that in 2007, George Degiorgio had asked to change some 60,000 euros in 20-euro notes. He “figured the money came from somewhere dodgy” but insisted he received nothing in return.

In 2010, he also exchanged 3,000 dollars for Darren ‘It-Topo’ Debono. “Rest assured I was not involved,” he said.

That same year, he also rented an apartment to Debono and Alfred Degiorgio. One day, he received a call to go and discovered Debono with a bullet wound to the face. He called a horse vet to deal with the wound but had no further involvement. Debono was wounded in the botched heist and has been convicted in connection with it.

A series of messages discovered on Theuma’s phone raised some questions with his step-daughet.

One discussed an arson attack on the boyfriend of Theuma’s step-daughter, Ryan. Messages shown to the court around the time of the incident, Theuma said that he knew who was involved, naming “Il-Fulu”, the nickname of Alfred Degiorgio. Theuma said he was joking when he said he was involved.

Another one with his stepdaughter, taken before Daphne’s murder, discussed the journalist and revealed Theuma’s involvement in the killing. 

“I hope she dies, that bitch…Let’s see if she ends up ruining my cheque,” Theuma wrote. 

“She likes to stick her nose into other people’s business,” his stepdaughter replied.

Fenech’s defence team will begin its cross-examination when the trial resumes on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Godwin Cini took Theuma through screenshots of conversations with a contact saved as “Yurgin”, which Theuma confirmed were his exchanges with Fenech. 

In one, sent around carnival, Theuma told Fenech he had seen a man pass his house and did not like it. Theuma testified that he suspected the man was a CID officer and that he followed him the next day, watching him walk around the block and into a house. 

Fenech replied that he had spoken to his “mate” that morning. Theuma told the court that the mate was Keith Schembri, then the prime minister’s chief of staff.

In another exchange, Fenech invited Theuma to bring his son over to play with Fenech’s son while the two men spoke properly. Theuma said the two had argued by phone earlier that day, after he learned that Vince Muscat, known as il-Koħħu, was talking to the police. He recalled telling Fenech: “What have you gotten me into?” Cini noted to the jury that Fenech had enabled disappearing messages with a five-minute timer.

In court, Theuma said Fenech was coaching him on how to mislead Cremona. In one text, Fenech told Theuma to call Johann Cremona, say he could not take the betrayal, leave it for an hour, then walk it back by explaining that his uncle had already had a deal. “Dress it up,” Fenech wrote, according to the transcript read in court, “and if you’re going to do it, prepare properly,” Theuma replied. 

A similar exchange, Theuma said, concerned what he should say to Alfred Degiorgio on a line he knew was being tapped. 

“It would be better if they stopped listening. It would be a very good sign,” Theuma says.

“Say something like this. It’s OK with the boss. It wasn’t a betrayal. His uncle had an obligation, and they couldn’t add another two taxis at the Hilton,” Fenech replies.

In court, Theuma says that Fenech instructed him over the phone to tell Degiorgio that he knew the line was being tapped. 

“It shouldn’t sound like we’re arguing,” Fenech writes. “ So we’ll put them off listening. And throw it aside.”

In court, Theuma says Fenech instructed him on how to get the Malta Security Services off track and stop them from intercepting their calls. 

In one of the longer exchanges, the two men traded complaints about their nerves before turning to the risk from the Degiorgio brothers. Theuma warned that George Degiorgio wanted to go to the magistrate. Fenech answered that they were playing the game, and advised Theuma to tell the police he did not know what they were talking about. Theuma then told Fenech that he and Schembri should make sure that any evidence the Degiorgios tried to produce in prison was destroyed immediately. Fenech, according to the message, replied that everyone says their own thing and nobody has anything.

In another, Fenech told Theuma that he was the only person who worried him, that he would always keep him close, and that Theuma’s son was now his son. Theuma told the court that Fenech was worried he would crack and go to the police.

Jurors were also shown an exchange in which Theuma asked how to contact Alfred Degiorgio, and Fenech said he would buy a phone with a foreign SIM card and send word of the number to prison.

In the same conversation, Theuma forwarded Fenech a news article reporting Labour 80,000 votes ahead, and said the government would hold another inquiry into the murder so that the truth would be known once he was dead and buried. Theuma testified that this was at a point when he was convinced Fenech and Schembri were plotting to kill him.

The final messages put to the witness concerned the approach to the November 2017 arrests. Fenech told Theuma that he could not understand why he had doubted him, that they would sort everything out, and that “it will happen on Saturday”. 

Theuma asked whether he could keep “the women” out of it. Fenech said he was aware of it and was working on it, and advised Theuma to clear everything up. Theuma told the court that Fenech had advised him to remove anything connected to his black market lottery operation, along with his recordings about the murder.

Recordings with Johann Cremona and Calls with Yorgen Fenech

The morning session focused on a series of recordings between Melvin Theuma and Johann Cremona, the business partner of Yorgen Fenech. 

iN the recordings, Theuma and Cremona discuss Fenech having engaged the Degiorgios and then being blackmailed for money. Theuma also says that Fenech used to say that Daphne Caruana Galizia was “better dead than alive”.

Theuma reiterated, under questioning, that he had never recorded Keith Schembri, stressing that he had met him only twice: once at Fenech’s ranch in Zebbug and once at Castille, when he was given the phantom government job.

He said that he assumed Fenech and Schembri were working together but told the court that Schembri never gave him money and that the order to carry out the assassination was given to him by Fenech. He added that when he was brought before the magisterial inquiry, he was told that he should only give the truth about what he knew and saw.

In recordings, Theuma presses Cremona as to whether Schembri had sent Kenneth Camilleri – and whether he would be able to meet face to face. Theuma told the court that this was an attempt to record Camilleri. 

In the same recording, Cremona describes passing a message via Kenneth so it reaches Yorgen Fenech: “the medicine for everything is money”. Under questioning, Theuma confirmed it was related to Vince ‘Il-Kohhu’ Muscat.

“Il-Koħħu stopped talking,” Theuma told Cremona, adding that their “power was money”, in reference to the payments to the hitmen.

In one exchange, Cremona tells Theuma to “delete the recording,” confirming earlier testimony that Fenech’s business associate was trying to have the tapes destroyed. 

At one point, Theuma mentions “the Commissioner”, a reference to then-Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar. Theuma told the court that he was bluffing and had never spoken to him. On the other hand, he said that Cutajar was trying to get information from him, as confirmed by Edwin Brincat’s testimony.  Theuma said he invented information to test whether Cremona was lying to him; adding that actually 

 Two further calls were played, in which Theuma was asked only to identify the voices. They were both with Fenech.

 In one, he and Fenech discuss Theuma approaching Keith Schembri’s secretary to resolve a problem he had run into with Enemalta. In another, the two mention Edwin Brincat, known as il-Ġojja. A third call, between Theuma and Brincat, was played with a child audible in the background.

Fenech denies the charges against him.

“It’s disgraceful that they didn’t bring them,” Fenech is heard saying on a covert recording made by Melvin Theuma, the middleman who arranged the journalist’s murder. “For me it’s better, personally.”

“The laptops confuse people’s minds,” Fenech says. “Didn’t she write against the whole of Malta? Whatever had to come out has come out. Don’t forget that the laptops were always in their hands.”

Theuma explained the reasoning to the jury. Caruana Galizia wrote about a great many people, so returning the laptops would open up access to everyone she had written about. It would take the focus off Fenech and himself, and there would be many more suspects instead. Theuma said he felt better whenever more people were under suspicion.

Elsewhere on the tape, Fenech said there were “300” people who had motive to murder Daphne.

The recording was one of eight played to jurors.

What runs through the recording is Theuma’s alarm at how unbothered Fenech appears.

“You drive me mad, how calm you are,” he says early on.

“Let me tell you why I’m calm,” Fenech answers. “If you don’t have control over things, well. If I had control over things I’d be going through the walls.”

Theuma told the court he took this to mean Fenech felt trapped between four walls and could do nothing.

Fenech is also recorded remarking on the decision by Caruana Galizia’s widower to withdraw the libel suits she had been fighting at the time of her death. “I don’t blame him. I’d do the same as him, drop the libel suits,” Fenech says. “Fight with half of Malta because of her? Why?”

Asked by the prosecution whether there had ever been a conversation in which the two of them admitted they had done something wrong, Theuma described driving Fenech to the airport and asking him whether he would have gone through with the killing had they known how big it was going to become.

Fenech’s answer, according to Theuma, was: “Definitely not.”

And asked what interest Fenech had in telling him all of this, Theuma replied: “He had no interest? He had no interest, the mastermind?”

“He used to tell me that he messed things up. He paid for Daphne to be killed. And Johann used to tell me that Yorgen didn’t want her around. He was doing well in life.”

Recording 1: The Hitmen

Much of the conversation is a calculation about time. The compilation of evidence against Alfred and George Degiorgio was nearing completion.

“By law they’re supposed to give them [bail],” Fenech says. But he is emphatic that it will not come early: “Nobody has ever been released before the evidence is brought, never.” He puts the outer limit at “about two years. Twenty months”, and says that at that point “they’ll have to release them, they haven’t even got a choice.”

Fenech is dismissive of the prosecution’s chances should the Degiorgios face a jury. “There’s never been a trial by jury that fast and went well, never,” he says. “They don’t have a chance in a hundred years.”

Theuma’s worry is not the law but the men. “How long they stay calm in there, Yorg, you’ll have to see,” he says.

“A month, two months is one thing,” Fenech replies.

Theuma told the court he had begun to fear that the Degiorgios would get bail, take the money and leave Malta. On the recording he says of Vince Muscat: “At the end of the day, il-Koħħu was going to expose me.”

Fenech commits to keeping the payments going. “It’s not our fault at all, but even so I’m not going to fight with them,” he says. “On the contrary, I’ll help them.”

“And you’ve already helped them, Yorg, haven’t you,” Theuma says. “And we served them.”

“And we promised them we’d carry on,” Fenech answers.

The two men also discuss a €75,000 legal bill. “These are animals, not people,” Fenech says of the lawyers. “These want to become millionaires in a day.”

Recording: The Politicians: Joseph Muscat and Chris Cardona

Theuma is recorded pressing Fenech to take their problem to his contacts. If he were in Fenech’s position, he says, knowing the people Fenech knows, “I’d tell you how fast I’d move: the Prime Minister.”

Fenech refuses flatly. “That would be the last thing I’d do. The maddest thing I’d have done in my life,” he says. “It would be the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.”

“Just by speaking to certain people I’d make it worse, I’d throw everybody into the net, worse and worse,” he goes on. “Throw everybody into the trap for nothing? Why?”

Theuma told the court he had wanted Joseph Muscat approached because this was the biggest killing in Malta and Muscat had the power. He said Fenech had sent him polling showing the Labour Party was solid, and gave him to understand that under that administration they had no problems.

Fenech offers Theuma an assurance instead. “For me it’s not about whether I get exposed or I don’t get exposed,” he says. “But if I give my word, my word is my word.” And on what should happen if they are caught: “Whatever we can sort out, at that moment, not an hour later. At that moment. An hour before, even.” Theuma told the court this referred to sorting matters with the police.

Fenech names one politician on the recording: Chris Cardona.

Theuma reports on the tape that Cardona had told them to ignore the men in custody. “Him too? He said to ignore them?” Fenech replies. “As much as he can help them, nobody can help them, because he knows his way around in there, not like us.”

Theuma told the court that Mario Degiorgio, the brothers’ brother, had told him to have €400,000 ready by the time the jury trial began, and that if the lawyer David Gatt did not have that sum by then it would go badly for him. Theuma said Mario never told him what the money was for, and that his own assumption that it was for a lawyer was just that. Mario also told him that Gatt had said it would go badly for him if Cardona were exposed too.

He said Fenech had told him that a mobile recovered by soldiers searching the sea carried a contact for Cardona and communicated only with Alfred Degiorgio.

Theuma told the court Fenech used to mention Cardona to try and shift blame away from him. 

“Tad-diesel, il-Bona, and he would even try pinning it on her son, saying that he left her car out on purpose,” Theuma said.

Theuma said Johann Cremona used to name a number of people to him, but that Fenech only ever named Cardona, and that Fenech did so to shift attention away from himself.

He said Cremona had once shown him a photograph of another middleman, and that Fenech had told him the man’s name began with B and that he was from Birkirkara, a middleman like Theuma but for Cardona.

 “Johann once told me that the lawyer Arthur Azzopardi collected €100,000 from the freemasonry for Koħħu, but he did not manage to give it to him before he was jailed,” he added.

Recording: Payments to the hitmen

A second recording, made at Portomaso, has the two men discussing the sums being paid to the Degiorgio brothers, both for the killing and afterwards. Fenech is heard asking Theuma whether he is being careful on the phone so as not to be traced.

Theuma told the court that Mario Degiorgio had asked him for €61,000 to send to the brothers’ relatives outside Malta, on the understanding that the money would then be returned to the country. Theuma paid the money himself, and Fenech reimbursed him.

He said he had felt guilty going back to Fenech for more, because the agreed figure had been €150,000 and that was to have been the end of it. He said the demands had nearly cost him his standing and his friendship with Fenech. “I got fed up taking money out of my own pocket,” he said.

He kept paying, he told the jury, because it was him the brothers knew, not Fenech. He said he never told them who the mastermind was. They found out from the news.

Recording: Phones, Potato Shed, And Trips Abroad 

A recording made at the ranch on a Sunday morning opens with Theuma telling Fenech they are making too much of a fuss, and asking: “But aren’t you afraid, Yorg, that we’ll end up in the shit?”

“What do you want to do?” Fenech answers.

Theuma is then heard saying that if they had wanted to find the mobile, they found it. He told the court he had begun to worry that the phone Alfred Degiorgio used to call him had been thrown into the potato shed and recovered by soldiers, who searched the water there.

“What did they do about Cardona’s one?” Theuma asks on the tape.

“My mate told me,” Fenech begins. Theuma told the court the phone in question was Cardona’s, and that “my mate” meant Keith Schembri. Asked who had been giving Fenech his information, Theuma answered with the same name.

Theuma presses on the recording: did they find it, what did they do with it, did they throw it away. “The Government would fall,” he says. “Serious things. And where did they find it, Yorg?”

Theuma is also heard saying that three hundred and fifty had been taken in all. He told the court Cremona had told him the Degiorgios collected €350,000 for the killing.

Asked about a passage in which Fenech asks whether the men in custody have a chance, Theuma said that on the Caruana Galizia case they did, but that otherwise it was life. Asked what would happen if other matters came up, he said there were other murders, and that both Cremona and Fenech had told him there were around seven.

On the recording, Fenech tells Theuma to book a holiday, given his mental state at the time. Theuma in court confirmed that Fenech handed him 5,000 for the trip. 

“You’ve given me the courage of a horse,” Theuma tells Fenech.

The two of them then discuss whether they would be arrested first and sort things afterwards. Theuma is recorded saying he does not think they will be arrested and that they will sort it out. He told the court he had said he thought it would be sorted before any arrest.

In the tape, Fenech once again reiterates his relationship with Keith Schembri and Silvio Valletta, detailing how they passed him information.

Recording: The investigation into Theuma

The recording was made when Theuma collected Fenech from the airport. Theuma told the jury he handed his phone to Fenech during the conversation so that Fenech could check whether his WhatsApp was backing up.

Asked why Fenech had an interest in his mobile at all, Theuma answered: because of what the two of them sent each other about the murder. On the tape, Theuma asks whether it would be safe for him to destroy the phone. 

He also described being told by Johann Cremona to change his number because it was tapped, and to leave the old handset abandoned somewhere rather than simply switch it off. Theuma also confirmed that Cremona had warned him he was going to be arrested over something, and that he took this to Fenech.

“[The issue] is dead,” Fenech says. “Yes, it’s dead, but can’t you see they’re coming for me?” Theuma replies.

Much of the conversation is about the investigation into Theuma rather than the murder itself. In it, Theuma describes a sanction letter being rescinded by the bank – and that the bank informed him that the request came through the FIAU.

Theuma later confirmed that Fenech offered to lend him the money to pay for the property. He had bought the flat from Fenech’s uncle, and Fenech told him not to tell the uncle where the money had come from. The payments never occurred due to the men’s arrest in November 2019.

On the tape, Fenech reasons out loud that the police do not warn people in advance of an investigation. Fenech is recorded as saying he needed to check because he did not want to tell Theuma things that later proved untrue. He says he had spoken to “the other one”, which Theuma said was Schembri.

In one exchange, the two men discuss the magistrate who conducted the Egrant inquiry, Aaron Bugeja and how he was appointed to oversee the trial against the hitmen. He was tasked with the trial in July 2019. Fenech confidently says he believes the trial will take an extended period.

 “If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have given it to him,” Fenech says.