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 He also added that he was aware of the police investigation once the bank rescinded a sanction letter.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.

“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. 

“When I told him [about the murder], he froze. I told him, there isn’t another way now. He told me….he told me that he wanted her burnt not just once but a hundred times,” Yorgen is heard saying in the tapes.

“There are few people here who know him as well as I do. Keith is going to tell me the same thing he told me every time I spoke to him. I couldn’t have done more than I did.”

“I told him: “What would you have done?” He told me: I would have helped you.  I said to him, “You had no other way out.” I said to him, “Did I do something wrong?” He said to me: What do you mean, wrong! You should have told me beforehand.”

Recordings Played In Court: 

Theuma’s recordings were played in court for the first time in his testimony. Before they began, Theuma apologised to the court and jurors for the prolific swearing in the tapes.

Recording 1: 

The first one played was a conversation between Theuma and Fenech taken on 24th April 2018. It was the first recording Theuma had taken. The recorder was hidden in his sock. Yorgen was not aware he was being recorded. In the conversation, the two men discuss Vince Muscat, his request for a pardon, and his discussions with the police.

“Stay calm, eh. Listen and don’t rush, because I don’t even know if it’s a good idea to pass them on to them,” Yorgen says. Theuma confirmed they were discussing passing on money to the Degiorgios.

“Are you sure that [Vince] definitely knows nothing? And how does their brother [Mario Degiorgio] talk to you? Well, [Vince] spoke. I think he did that on purpose to send a message.”

“Il-Kohhu is saying that he doesn’t know who ordered it – but he knows who the middleman is,” Yorgen Fenech adds. “I never gave them your name,” Theuma replies. “It’s better like that,” Fenech says.

“[Vince] knows we have friends like Valletta, right?” Fenech asks. 

“You’re not going to tell him that you brought me into it?” Theuma replies, confirming that he was talking about Daphne’s murder. “You don’t need to panic, listen to me,” Fenech says. 

“Don’t remove anything from the bank. Don’t shift banks. In fact, stick to normal things. You have to be careful,” Fenech tells Theuma. “[The hitmen] are being monitored all the time; be careful over the phone.”

The tape ended soon after. Fenech then told Theuma to download Signal on his phone.

Recording 2:

A second tape was played to the court. This is a recording Theuma took of a phone call with Mario Degiorgio, the brother of Alfred and George Degiorgio, after Kenneth Camilleri informed him that the hitmen would secure bail, as Theuma testified. “He sent him eh”, Melvin tells his partner before the calls start, a reference to Keith Schembri.

“I wanted to meet Kenneth to record him, but he never gave me the opportunity,” Theuma said.

Recording 3:

A third recording, another conversation between Theuma and Fenech, was played. In the clip, Theuma picked up Fenech and his children to take them to the airport. “Did you speak to him? Keith said on the 22nd – a million each he mentioned,” Theuma asks. In court, he said in another recording, Fenech confirms that Schembri sent Camilleri.

“What am I going to do?” Theuma asks. “I didn’t promise you anything,” Fenech replies, dismissing the idea that Keith Schembri can help secure the pardon. “I’m not going to take the blame for this. I’ll take Alfred’s brother and go straight to Mellieha to Keith’s house,” Theuma says. 

“I had got it into my head that Keith was involved since he sent Kenneth.”

Recording 4:

A fourth recording showed the most extensive conversation between Yorgen and Theuma – touching upon the pardon plan, Schembri, leaks and Muscats’ discussions with police.

“I’m going to Vegas on Monday,” Fenech says at the start. “I’m disappointed you recorded me”. The pair discussed Johann Cremona and how he became aware of the murder.

“I have what to worry about,” Fenech told Theuma. “You have nothing to worry about; I never mentioned your name,” Theuma replied.

“Because he ordered it,” Theuma explained to the court.

In the recorded conversation, Yorgen makes several references to the “€30,000” deposit for the murder. Theuma told the court that Fenech paid the entire €150,000 at once.

“They made [Vince Muscat] talk a little, so that we panic and the government will panic. If there is a problem, it will reach, and I’ll panic you,” Fenech says in the tapes.

The conversation turned to the Degiorgio brothers, and the bail request, or lack thereof. “That bothers me. I told him,” Fenech says. “To Keith, you need to tell Keith,” Theuma replies. “I told him, do you think I didn’t tell him?” Fenech tells Theuma. “I’m with you, not for [money],” Theuma says. 

“If the 22nd comes and these people don’t get bail – I’m going to be right in the middle of it,” Theuma tells Fenech. “You’re not going to be in trouble, and find that I won’t help you,” Fenech replies.

The men continued talking about the pardon. Later on in the conversation, Fenech tells Theuma: “I don’t want to get you involved in certain things. I [spoke to Keith Schembri] for you. You should have told them you would do whatever you can. But I can’t do anything; what can I do? In my view, Keith won’t be able to..”

Fenech then asks about the recordings. “I’m really disappointed that you recorded me; now get them for me,” Fenech tells Theuma. Theuma told the court that he would have never turned the recordings over. “That would have saved him,” he said.

The conversation later switches back to Keith Schembri and the bail request. 

“[Keith] told me that he sent [Kenneth Camilleri] to the garage. He told me, “What are we going to do, Yorgen?” He told me that he did it for me. He told me: Yorgen, I sent [Kenneth Camilleri]”, Fenech says in the tape.

“I am going to call Silvio Valletta to see what’s happening, because you’re worrying me,” Fenech said. This was also a reference to the day when Theuma got drunk and turned off his phone. “I thought they made a scene or did something to you; I called Johann Cremona. I was worried about you. I even checked the hospital,” Fenech adds.

“I told you to watch out for that phone. Keep an eye out,” Fenech says. Theuma said this was because Fenech believed Theuma’s phone was being wiretapped.

Fenech then mentions a meeting between Valletta, Joseph Muscat, Owen Bonnici, Chris Cardona, Keith Schembri and Keith Arnaud. He says this was a Cabinet meeting on Vince Muscat’s pardon request. He said Keith Schembri and Silvio Valletta passed on the information. ‘Ix-Xih’ is mentioned, which Theuma says is a nickname from Muscat.

“I told [Keith Schembri], are you crazy sending Ix-Xih’s driver?” Fenech says. “[Keith] told me that he had three court cases and couldn’t settle those, let alone someone else’s.”

“[Vince Muscat] says you saw him at Busy Bee,” Fenech adds. “Yes,” Theuma replies.

“Yorgen told me that when it comes to the murder, he’s caught between four walls, but on Electrogas, he told me that he did everything perfectly,” Theuma told the court, when asked to explain the interaction a bit more.

The prosecution then moved on to a segment later in the tape. “What I can do, I will do, but I won’t even say I’m going to try. I can’t do anymore.”

“But, let’s say it how it is…he stepped up for me and went into the fire for me, and then he sent [Kenneth Camilleri] to talk to you for me,” Fenech says. “After you sent those messages, they sent him to put pressure on those from Ħaż-Żebbuġ (the Maksar Brothers)”.

“[Vince is speaking about] All of them, all of them. There are about 7. The only thing he is not talking about is the HSBC heist because there are some powerful figures involved,” Fenech then adds. 

“Otherwise, he is speaking about everything and where they got it from, in a house in Zebbug….[Keith Schembri and Silvio Valletta] told me.” 

In court, Theuma divulged further on this conversation. He said that Yorgen Fenech told him Schembri began crying when investigators began identifying who provided the bomb. 

“[Valletta] isn’t as good a friend as [Schembri]. I trust him, and he’s done a lot for me. When I told him [about the murder], he froze. I told him, there isn’t another way now. He told me….he told me that he wanted her burnt not just once but a hundred times.”

“She broke them. They were angry. Joseph and all. She had published that [Keith] was going to die in three months. Whatever he did, he did it for me. But now he’s panicking, and now something funny is going to happen.”

“What am I going to tell [the Degiorgio brothers]?” Theuma then asks. “For now, don’t tell them anything. You can tell them you were passing on a message; that’s the truth,” Fenech says.

“But you should be at ease. You have three levels: the bottom (the hitmen), the middle (himself), and then the top. The bottom gets 10 years, the top gets 7 years, and the middle gets 5,” Fenech says in the tape. “The top was him,” Theuma told the court. 

“If there’s one thing I am not, I am not spiteful. Not like [Daphne]. Like her, I would have thrown her out of here, and I wouldn’t be sad,” Fenech adds. 

The pair spoke further in the depth about Muscat, with Fenech lamenting that he could not understand by he was talking to the police. 

Theuma then revealed to the court that Johann Cremona was also informed that Muscat was talking – and that he had sent two people to threaten Arthur Azzopardi. Muscat has confirmed that Azzopardi withdrew his case due to the threats he was receiving. Cremona had told the court that he was informed Muscat would not be accepting the 12-year pardon, though a note slipped under his door.

Next in the tapes, Fenech mentions that Muscat is talking about other murders, namely ‘Tat-Tyson’. Jonathan ‘Tat-Tyson’ Pace was murdered a few months after he was charged with the attempted murder of Muscat. 

“[The Degiorgios] asked for €10,000 and they gave him a discount at €8,000,” Fenech says in the tape.

“I know what he’s going to I know what he’s going to say, because I know Keith, I know him well. There are few people here who know him as well as I do. Keith is going to tell me the same thing he told me every time I spoke to him. I couldn’t have done more than I did. I told him, “What would you have done?” He told me: I would have helped you.  I said to him, “You had no other way out.” I said to him, “Did I do something wrong?” He said to me: What do you mean, wrong! You should have told me beforehand.”

Still, Theuma was panicked, telling Fenech that he was worried about the protests forming around her murder. 

“You know how many people in Malta are behind [Daphne]? 4,000 bitter people – not even [Adrian] Delia is behind her.”

Yorgen Told Me Arrest Was Coming: Melvin Theuma Details Road To Pardon

Questions turned to 14th November 2019, the day Theuma was arrested. Theuma confirmed that he knew the police were investigating him after the bank closed his accounts and rescinded a sanction letter on a property he purchased in San Gwann.

He confirmed that he had passed the documents to Johann Cremona, who later told him he was under investigation for usury, illegal lotto, and tax evasion. This was a few months before his arrest.

“I ended up recording Johann, and I ended up telling him that I was getting information from the Police Commissioner to show him that I had power”.

“[Johann] would tell me that, if I got arrested, Ray Aquilina (former Police Inspector charged in bribery case with Yorgen Fenech) would come with me to the Police Headquarters. I told Yorgen, and he said that if they arrested me, he would come for pastizzi near the HQ…but Yorgen tried to escape on his yacht when they did.”

Theuma confirmed that it was Fenech who informed him he would be arrested on Saturday 16th November. 

“Two days before, Yorgen and Johann called me. They told me that they were going to arrest me and I needed to clean up everything. That day, it was a Thursday, I went to clean my apartment of evidence of the lotto”

Theuma went to drop off winnings from the previous day’s lotto and made his way to the apartment. He was arrested by Inspector Nicholas Vella in Zurrieq. Theuma’s family members were also arrested. 

“I told [Vella] that I had a box on my seat that I wanted to open in front of a Magistrate and the Attorney General. I didn’t believe anyone apart from them. I thought to myself, Yorgen is a powerful person – and something is going to happen to the recordings.”

Theuma then walked the jurors through the contents of the ice cream box, which was filled with recordings from mobile phones and USB drives, as well as images, including messages and the photo he had taken with Keith Schembri.

Police seized devices, money, and other evidence of the lotto from the apartment. Theuma confirmed that the police returned two cars and money totalling 75,000 euros for him to pay the fines imposed on his partner and her daughter.

Theuma also confirmed that the Caruana Galizia family have opened civil cases against Theuma, Fenech, the Degiorgios, Vince Muscat, and the Maksar brothers. 

At the police headquarters, Theuma requested Jason Azzopardi, Karol Aquilina, and David Casa as his representatives. He said it was because they were public PN figures who spoke out on the murder and 17 Black.

“Yorgen even told me that Theuma offered the PN money to ensure that David Casa would not be elected to the MEPs. He was speaking a lot about 17 Black.”

Theuma then requested Matthew Brincat, his lawyer to this day. He had known him for a long time from Marsa. Kathleen Calleja Grima joined the next day. The two negotiated his pardon. 

“I told the police exactly what I knew. Not what I thought or assumed. Everything I knew, that I heard, that I saw. I only said the truth and not what came into my head. I told them that Yorgen ordered the murder and that I organised it through Alfred Degiorgio.”

Questions turned to Theuma’s mental state after the arrest and how he failed to find an appropriate psychiatrist. This included Mark Xuereb, but he ended up leaving him after learning he was close to Franco Fenech. 

“Then, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t see any way out,” Theuma said, tears welling up in his eyes. 

Theuma Explains Why Pardon Extends To Heists At HSBC And Casino Di Valletta

Theuma’s pardon covered the murder, his money laundering and the illegal lotto. But it also extended to three other crimes. Theuma explained them to jurors.

“There were three things: the HSBC heist in Balzan, where 1 million was stolen as  George ‘Iċ-Ċiniż’ needed to exchange money. Then I needed to exchange money from the Casino di Venezia robbery for Darren Debono; and the failed heist at the HSBC headquarters in Santa Venera – I rented a flat in Mosta for Alfred Degiorgio and Darren Debono, and one day, they called asking to meet. When I arrived, I found Darren Debono bleeding, and he told me to get a horse doctor.”

Darren Debono received a 10-year prison term for his role in the botched hold-up in 2010, to provide testimony against Vince Muscat, one of the hitmen, for his role in the attempted robbery. Debono has refused to give up the other names.

Interactions with Silvio Valletta, Johann Cremona and Yorgen Fenech

“Yorgen told me that Keith Schembri and Silvio Valletta passed on information,” Theuma told the court.

Theuma claimed that he met Valletta once. Theuma was at Fenech’s ranch when he was sent to pick up some bread. When he returned, he saw Valletta laughing in the driving.

“He was looking at me. I didn’t like it. Then a few days later, I was giving Yorgen a lift to the airport, and he told me: Valletta saw you; he said you weren’t a new face to the police. And I got angry. I asked where Valletta knew me from. Yorgen said that I was taking everything too seriously.”

“One time, Valletta came to Fenech’s office after a court hearing. Yorgen told me: Valletta L-Ohxon (the Fat One) is coming”

“When pressure was rising on Valletta to be removed from the Daphne murder investigation, I spoke to Yorgen about it, and he told me: God forbid he gets removed.”

Theuma said there were three occasions when Yorgen, Theuma, and Johann Cremona met.

The first time, the three men were at Level 21 in Portomaso. “We talked about Daphne’s murder, about the money, about how there was nothing on us. He could not remember when this conversation took place.

On another occasion, during winter, Theuma went to Fenech’s ranch and the pair began talking. 

“I told him that I was scared we would get caught. He told me: If we see something bad coming, I’ll give you 1 million and escape. I told him I wouldn’t leave.”

Theuma had real fears that Fenech would kill him. The court has previously heard how Fenech was attempting to purchase weapons and cyanide from the dark web. Theuma threw it away. Theuma said that his fear was more a belief rather than based on anything he had heard.

One time, Theuma said Fenech called him up to give him a piece of meat. Theuma suspected it might have been poisoned. At the time, he was fearful Fenech was trying to murder him. 

Another time, Fenech had planned a holiday between them in France. This was during the summer of 2019. Theuma cancelled last minute. “I was scared he would murder me in France.”

There was one month when Mario Degiorgio asked for 80,000 to bring Franco Debono on as their lawyers. Theuma could not get through to Fenech. 

“I went near Castille to see whether Kenneth Camilleri or Keith Schembri were there. [Yorgen and Keith] had a private line between them. I left after an hour and a half. I told Edwin Bincat about it, and he said I was crazy.”

“I didn’t end up giving them the 80,000. Whatever money they needed, Yorgen always paid for it.”

“Yorgen would tell me that no one would touch me. He once told me that it wasn’t me who messed up, and that he wouldn’t want the Daphne case to fall all on me.”

Questions turned to Edwin Brincat, a father figure and confidante to Theuma. Brincat has already testified in the case, particularly regarding his meetings and communications with then-Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar. Both Brincat and Cutajar have confirmed that in two meetings, Cutajar asked about Theuma’s tapes. 

Theuma confirmed that Brincat shared the episode with him. He corroborated Cutajar and Brincat’s previous testimonies. 

“I told Johann and Yorgen. I went crazy the second I heard. From then on, I always mentioned the Commissioner with Johann. I never spoke to the Commissioner in my life- I spoke to him the first time after I was arrested and discussing my pardon.”

“I did speak about the payments, but it’s not true; they never happened. I never met him.”

Theuma will continue testifying on Monday. 

Over several hours, he set out a timeline of Caruana Galizia’s assassination as he describes it: the conversation in which he says Fenech first raised her killing, the €150,000 he says was agreed with the men who carried it out, the payments that continued for two years afterwards, and his decision to begin secretly recording Fenech.

Fenech denies the charges against him.

Theuma opened with an apology. “I would like to say sorry to the Caruana Galizia family,” he said.

He broke down in the witness box throughout the sitting, no more so than when he described the day of Daphne’s murder:

“I was going about my life normally. I went to get a pizza, and then it happened. From that day onwards, my life was over. When they blew her up, that was it for me.”

“Daphne died because we killed her.”

He told jurors he had contacted both Matthew and Paul Caruana Galizia, and said they continue to show him support.

The friendship that led to an assassination

Theuma’s relationship with the Fenech family began with Yorgen’s uncle, Ray, from whom he rented an office. At the time, Theuma worked as a bookmaker in horse racing and ran an illegal lottery.

He first met Yorgen Fenech, he said, after being called to drive him in one of his cars at his father’s funeral.

“[Yorgen] got me into Portomaso in around 2015, and he and I became inseparable. In 2017, I adored and respected him. I’d say yes to him for everything.”

“He would call me and say: let’s go to France. He would pay for everything, hotel, travel. Can you have a better friendship than that?”

“He was Malta’s champion when it came to business, an entrepreneur; he knew people, the big names, and so on.”

”Once, I was with him in the car at Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri were calling him. Even Beppe Fenech Adami, but he didn’t take his call because he said he was a pest.”

The Plot to Murder Daphne

Theuma said the conversation that began the plot took place at the Blue Elephant restaurant, roughly three weeks before the 2017 general election date was announced.

In 2017, Yorgen called me and said: can you come over to the Blue Elephant? We need to talk. He asked me if I knew iċ-Ċiniż [George Degiorgio] from Marsa. I told him yes. He said: see what you can do; let’s get hold of him, we’re going to murder Caruana Galizia because of some information that’s going to come out. I told him I would see what I could do.”

Theuma said he knew Alfred Degiorgio, George’s brother, having rented a flat from him years earlier, but lost contact when Alfred was jailed for three years.

Theuma called Alfred and told him he needed to meet him. They met at the Potato Shed in Marsa.

“I told him: I have someone who wants to pay to have Daphne Caruana Galizia murdered. He said, is he going to pay? I said, obviously. I never mentioned names,” Theuma said.

“I told him let’s meet at Busy Bee in Msida. We met there, and he told me the price was €150,000 with a €30,000 deposit. Yorgen told me he was interested and would get back to me. The government announced the election, and he told me to stop everything.”

“To save face, I gave Alfred €2,000.”

Both Degiorgio brothers have since pleaded guilty to carrying out the murder.

The Phantom Job

Theuma said that two days after the payment to Alfred Degiorgio, he was at Burger King with his son when Fenech called to tell him that a man named Sandro Craus would be in touch.

Craus, he said, called the next day and told him to be at Castille at 3pm to meet Keith Schembri, then chief of staff to prime minister Joseph Muscat. Theuma said Schembri met him on the steps and he entered through the front entrance. It was during that meeting that the now widely published photograph of the two men was taken.

“I don’t know why we took the photo. We just did. Then we moved over to a window, and he told me that I needed to go to a certain ministry because I had a job with the government.”

“Then they took me into a small room for an interview. There were three people there who told me to register with Jobsplus, and I went straight away. They asked me whether I knew how to use email, and I told them yes, but I don’t.”

“The second and the third cheque came by post, and the first one by hand. I received about three or four cheques. When they stopped, I called Yorgen, and he called them. I was told that I would need to start coming in, and I told them I wouldn’t.”

Schembri gave evidence in this trial last week and denied arranging the post or knowing why Theuma was sent to him.

The Go-Ahead

Theuma said Fenech asked him to place a €150,000 bet on Labour winning the election.

“On the Saturday of the election, Yorgen called me to stand outside Keith’s door because he needed a bodyguard. But I didn’t go.”

“On the Sunday, Labour won, and Yorgen won €150,000, so I needed to give him €300,000,” he said, referring to the returned stake and the winnings. “He then called me and brought up Daphne’s business. I could tell he had had a drink and was celebrating. Yorgen told me to get the plan moving.”

Theuma said he took no action, assuming Fenech was drunk. He delivered the €300,000 to Fenech’s ranch, and nothing was said. About two weeks after the election, he said, Fenech called him to Portomaso.

“I was waiting for him, and then he opened the boot, opened a suitcase and took out an envelope full of €50 notes. I asked him what these were and he said they were for Daphne.”

Theuma said he told Fenech he had not started anything because he had thought he was drunk. He took the money home, divided €30,000 into three envelopes and met Alfred Degiorgio at Busy Bee.

“I went inside and told him: there you are, you can start.”

Yorgen’s pressure to murder Daphne

“From the day after I gave Alfred the go-ahead, [Yorgen] started pestering me constantly. If the information came out, it’ll have been for nothing… she’ll have died for nothing.”

“He was frantic. He’d tell me on WhatsApp; in the car on the way to the airport, he’d also say to me, when is he going to get rid of her?”

“He would ask me every four days. Once, he even sent me a message saying he’d get the champagne ready; maybe it’ll happen today.”

“One time, Yorgen told me: make sure they don’t use a bomb on her, and it ends up like Romeo Bone’s, and they only take her legs off.”

“Right up until the murder, I never knew how they were going to kill her.”

Theuma said Fenech passed on information about where Caruana Galizia could be found during a period when the men lost track of her movements. He named two locations he said he relayed to Alfred Degiorgio, and said the men gave him two cheap burner phones to communicate with them.

He said Alfred Degiorgio did not take kindly to the pressure. “They told me they needed time.”

“Alfred took me up to Bidnija once. There’s a sort of collapsed rubble wall there and a tree, and he told me that they were watching her from there.”

“Once he told me what bad luck we had, and there was a roadblock; otherwise they would have done it. I once called Alfred in front of Yorgen.”

On 3 October 2017, Theuma travelled to France with his family, taking one of the phones with him.

“In October, I didn’t speak to Alfred once. I couldn’t get through to him. When she died, I threw the phone away.”

16 October

Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in Bidnija on 16 October 2017. Theuma said he learned of her death from the television.

Theuma then began to cry, lamenting how the murder impacted him.

“I was going about my life normally. I went to get a pizza, and then it happened. From that day onwards, my life was over. When they blew her up, that was it for me.”

“I didn’t know what was happening. When I was arrested and giving my statement to police, they asked me: do you realise she was a mother? A wife? I still can’t take it. I even asked her children for forgiveness. I’m a fool. The remorse I carry, nobody can take away from me.”

“Once I saw the news I was scared they would catch me. I was shaking. Full of dread. God, if only I were still as I was; go and get those days back.”

Payments, leaks and a will

The day after the murder, Theuma said, he asked to meet Fenech and was told to go to Level 21 in Portomaso, where he also met Turab Musayev, a director at ElectroGas. There is no suggestion that Musayev had any knowledge of the murder.

“I knew him from taxi rides. I was put in a room at the back. I told him I was scared because the FBI were coming. He asked me why, since the FBI would still be working with Maltese police.”

About a week later, Theuma said, he ran into Vince Muscat, who has also pleaded guilty to carrying out the murder, and told him he needed to speak to George Degiorgio. The men met him at a garage in Wied il-Għajn.

There, Theuma told jurors, he handed over €125,000 in €50 notes,

Theuma said Fenech later told him the men were in trouble because investigators had recovered the message that triggered the bomb, and that a large raid was coming in December. He said Fenech did not explain where the information came from.

“I went and found Alfred. I told him that they were in trouble, but he told me not to take any notice.”

“[On the raid] I asked him if I should tell them. He told me: yes, of course.”

“When I met Alfred, he told me that he would never give my name up, not even in another 125 years, and I hugged him.”

After the December arrests, Theuma said, Fenech gave him pills for anxiety, which he combined with whisky. He made a will dated 7 December 2017.

Theuma said he sent €300 a week between the three men in custody, routed through Lorry Pace, who gave evidence to the same effect earlier in the trial.

 “I was scared they would give my name up. I started it on my own initiative. I told Yorgen, but he took no notice of it.”

“I thought [Yorgen] would kill me. I have never given up his name…If he killed me, he would have nothing to worry about. The hitmen would never expose Yorgen because I never mentioned him.”

“Between 2018 and 2019, Yorgen saw me in a bad way and gave me €5,000 to go on holiday with my family.”

The money through Mario

In March 2018, the same month Vince Muscat began speaking to police, Theuma said he was contacted by the Degiorgio brothers through their brother Mario, who told him the two men needed €30,000 for a lawyer. Fenech provided the funds, Theuma said, and he passed them on.

Further requests followed. Mario asked for another €30,000 and offered to leave gold and watches as a guarantee; Fenech said the guarantee was not needed and provided €25,000, with Theuma making up the remaining €5,000 himself.

Subsequent requests ranged between €2,000 and €3,000 and covered legal costs, school fees, and other family expenses, including the costs of Italian experts engaged for the two brothers. On one occasion, Mario asked for €15,000 in connection with money-laundering proceedings against Anka Pop, George Degiorgio’s partner.

One time, Mario gave Theuma several receipts, dated between January and May 2018, from their lawyer, William Cuschieri, totalling €70,000. Theuma kept the receipts and gave them to investigators upon his arrest. “Maro gave it to me to show where the money was going and to be able to ask for more money”.

Fenech, Theuma said, always provided the funds, sometimes reimbursing him afterwards. The payments continued until shortly before his arrest: Fenech’s brother Franco, he said, passed on €20,000 on the Monday before 14 November 2019.

“One time, Mario told me that George wanted to tell me: stop worrying about outside, worry about the people on the inside.”

“Like they murdered Daphne, they could murder me too.”

Vince Muscat

Theuma described a night when Fenech called him to the ranch and told him that Vince Muscat was speaking to the police.

“We’re going to have problems. Vince is speaking to police about you and the Degiorgio brothers. I told him I only spoke to Alfred about it. He told me: I’m certain they’re naming you. He told me to tell the Degiorgio brothers. I went to tell Mario.”

“Yorgen never told me [where the information came from], but later I found out who was passing him the information. The recordings are clear.”

In the recordings, Theuma said Fenech names Keith Schembri and then deputy police commissioner Silvio Valletta. Schembri denied tipping anyone off when he testified last week. Valletta has previously denied passing information to Fenech.

That evening, Theuma said Fenech told him to start using Signal because messages would be deleted automatically.

“The next day, I tried calling Jason Azzopardi because I wanted to reveal everything. I told him I wanted to speak to him about ‘the big case’. He was abroad. I was drinking. He told me to call Karol Aquilina, but I got scared and didn’t want to speak to him.”

Later the same day, Theuma said, Fenech messaged him telling him to speak to the Maksar brothers because Vince Muscat was naming them as having supplied the bomb. The message was shown to jurors.

Cremona, Camilleri and the Bail Request

Theuma’s evidence turned to Johann Cremona, a business partner of Fenech who also leased an office from him and whom Theuma also recorded. Cremona introduced him to Kenneth Camilleri, then serving on Joseph Muscat’s security detail at the Office of the Prime Minister.

“Johann called me at around 7.30pm to 8pm. He told me that he was coming to speak to me. I found him with a certain Kenneth Camilleri. He was a policeman and Muscat’s driver. I knew him by sight through Johann.”

“Kenneth came to speak to me on his own. Johann remained far back. He suddenly asked me about Yorgen. I told him that the Degiorgios and Muscat would need bail. He left for a bit, made a phone call, and when he came back, he told me that [the Degiorgio brothers] would get bail on the 22nd and that each would get €1 million. I assumed it was Keith Schembri on the phone.”

“I picked up Yorgen from the airport soon after, and I started recording him. In those recordings, even Yorgen himself says that it was Keith who sent him.”

“I told Mario about the bail. I believed Kenneth. I wouldn’t understand why he would lie. Mario was so happy.”

“The next day, I went to Johann’s and Kenneth arrived. Kenneth brought up a paper with three numbers, one of them was mine. He told me those numbers were of the masterminds of Daphne’s murder. I looked at him and told him, Yorgen is the mastermind. He paid for it. He wanted it. He continued asking for it to happen.”

Camilleri testified earlier in this trial and denied that Schembri had sent him, and denied any involvement in a bail arrangement.

The recordings

Theuma said he began recording Fenech after the December arrests.

“Once Fenech had mentioned to me that someone recorded him and he was annoyed by it. But it gave me the idea, and I asked my partner’s daughter how I could do it.”

“I started recording Yorgen because I needed the proof. I knew they were going to betray me either by killing me or throwing me in jail. He told me how Keith Schembri would go into the fire for him.”

“I was scared that Keith Schembri would tell the police to delete the recordings.”

He said he confided in Edwin ‘il-Gojja’ Brincat, whom he described as being like a father to him, and with whom he discussed seeking a pardon.

“I had to tell him. I told him about the recordings. And he told me I was crazy because Yorgen was powerful. He told me that I threw my life away. He was right.”

“I felt it was better to be dead than alive.”

Theuma said he was meeting Cremona almost daily. “Johann was an in-between for Yorgen and me. I couldn’t speak to Yorgen about it. I didn’t have the guts to talk to Yorgen like how I could speak to Johann.”

The only people who knew about the recordings, he said, were his partner, Brincat and Cremona. Cremona, who testified last month, told the court he had informed Fenech.

“That night, I told Yorgen I would bring the recordings. I never did. We continued speaking as normal. He told me he was angry, but it was ok. I was never going to give them to him. They were my life.”

He said he showed Fenech only snippets. Brincat, he said, warned him that without the recordings he was dead, and installed an alarm in his car to detect a bomb.

The trial continues tomorrow.

Vella, a doctor from St Paul’s Bay, had a longstanding relationship with the Fenechs. He had known Yorgen Fenech for 32 years and the wider family, including Fenech’s grandfather, father and children, for 38 years. He served as their GP.

“We were like family,” Vella said. They met, he said, but not frequently, mostly at occasions such as Christmas meals. “I wasn’t part of his clique of friends.”

Fenech introduced Vella to Keith Schembri around 2016, when Schembri was seriously ill and undergoing cancer treatment. Fenech and Vella travelled abroad with him more than once, including to England. Vella said he accompanied Schembri to chemotherapy sessions “not as a doctor but as a friend”. They spoke often, but “never politics”.

Escape plans: a cocaine-fuelled trip to Gozo

The prosecution took Vella back to 14 November 2019, the day Theuma was arrested. The following day, Friday 15 November, Fenech called Vella in the morning, saying he was not feeling well and wanted to rest.

“Mentally, Fenech wasn’t well or logical, as he was under the influence of cocaine,” Vella said. He had established that Fenech was using cocaine around a year earlier, when he carried out a urine test on him without his knowledge after noticing physical effects of the drug. The test came back positive.

Vella suggested they go together to his house in Gozo to take a break. He collected Fenech from his Portomaso home after work that afternoon.

“He was coked up… he wasn’t well… he was quiet, he wasn’t aggressive,” Vella said. He could not say whether Fenech was on cocaine at that moment or on a benzodiazepine to come down.

They stopped at Fenech’s office on the way, at Fenech’s request. Vella waited in the car and did not ask why they were going. Fenech was gone for five to ten minutes and came back down with a case, “like an airport one”. They then drove from Portomaso straight to Ċirkewwa without stopping, with very little conversation in the car.

Vella said he did not ask Fenech why he wanted to rest, and that he had to be careful what he said because Fenech was under the influence.

In the car, Fenech asked Vella for his mobile. He made around three calls, on the way, on arrival in Gozo, and while Vella was out buying him cigarettes. He did not say whom he was calling or what about, but he sounded angry. To Vella, this was consistent with cocaine use: someone on cocaine, he said, is one way one minute and incredibly aggressive the next.

At the house, nothing was said between them. Vella gave Fenech no medication, stayed less than an hour and left.

Vella was reminded that in his previous testimony he had said Fenech told him “I’m in the shit”. He was further reminded that he had told police that, on the way up to Gozo, Fenech spoke to Schembri and discussed a potential escape, with Schembri telling Fenech to act differently and not go to Dubai like his cousin [More Supermarkets’ Ryan Schembri]. He had also told police that Schembri specifically told him to prevent Fenech’s escape.

Vella had also told police that he had seen Fenech with a passport and an ID card, and had mentioned that he feared Fenech might escape “over the Daphne case”.

In each instance, he said he could not remember. The prosecution reminded him that he gave this statement just two weeks after the episodes.

“My memory isn’t good, I promise,” Vella said.

The next day, Saturday, Franco collected Vella and drove him back to Gozo. On the way, they discussed how to find Yorgen a lawyer. In his state, Vella said, “he was so unwell that he wasn’t even starting to realise he needed a lawyer”.

Vella was reluctant to confirm on the stand why Fenech needed a lawyer. 

Pressed, he said it was because “they were mentioning him in the Daphne case”. He said Fenech “could have done things he shouldn’t have”, and that he had begun to see the media and the public naming names.

“Yorgen looked dishevelled,” Vella said. He was usually “perfect”. When the two men raised the question of a lawyer, Fenech went at them. He did not want them interfering, and did not move from where he was.

Vella called around 15 lawyers. Some did not answer, it being a Saturday afternoon, and others refused outright “the moment I mentioned [Yorgen’s] name”. Nobody, he said, would touch it, and they would not help him either.

“I helped them. I helped a lot of people, and they used it against me,” Vella said, tears streaming down his face.

Franco and Yorgen then took his phone and began calling people Vella could not identify. “They then said they would handle it themselves. They told me to go outside,” he said, adding that he was sent off to water the plants. From the garden he heard a lot of shouting. “I was annoyed – after all that they told me, they didn’t trust me.”

“They were talking about rockets, helicopters, aeroplanes. I didn’t know what game they were playing. I was so angry – I went for my mobile, took it and left. And I didn’t see them again.”

He was reminded that, in previous statements, he had said Fenech and his brother had proposed escaping to Morocco, Mexico, France, Dubai and a host of other countries. He accepted that this had likely happened. “That was the state they were in – they were going around the world,” Vella said.

“[Yorgen Fenech] just wanted to leave. I told him a lot of things to calm him down,” Vella said when asked about Fenech’s plans to leave by air or by sea.

He put the pair’s behaviour down to cocaine, saying they went “from zero to a hundred in an hour”. He did not see anyone take anything that day. A fortnight later, cleaning the house, he found white powder on the floor.

He left at about 5pm, taking his phone and leaving his keys behind. Fenech’s driver returned them to him two or three weeks later.

Franco was meant to collect Vella again the next day. However, Franco did not answer when Vella called him. “I discovered that they were no longer in Gozo when I saw that Yorgen had been arrested on his boat,” Vella said.

Vella also said that a few days before the trip, Fenech’s brother Franco had contacted him, worried that Yorgen was unwell. The two of them had spent years worrying about him and trying to work out what to do, Vella said, attributing this to his drug use.

They had repeatedly tried to get him into rehab. Vella said he signed protocols for him to go on several occasions, “but that’s as far as he’d get”. Fenech would try, then cut off contact for months. 

Months before this, Vella said, Fenech had shut himself inside his home for months at a stretch and had stopped answering his calls. He wanted out of the house because he was starting to feel bad.

During 2019, Vella said, he did not see him at all and heard nothing of him. He knew he was depressed but never discussed what was behind it.

“I just didn’t want to raise the subject with him. If I did, it would ruin my credibility. What was I going to do – ask him if it was him? He had asked me to help him. I wanted to help him; if I did, I would have lost everything,” he said.

The notes between Schembri and Fenech

Vella confirmed that he was called twice to police headquarters after the arrest, with Fenech complaining of chest pains. On the first occasion, he saw no need to send him to hospital. On the second, he said he was not prepared to risk it and sent him to Mater Dei by ambulance, where an angiogram ruled out a heart attack.

Vella was then taken to 24th November, four days after Fenech’s arrest. At 8:30am, Keith Schembri called Vella for a whiskey at Vella’s place. A normal invite, Vella said, describing his relationship with Schembri as a doctor’s friendship.

About two hours later, he began receiving calls from numbers he did not recognise. After around four unanswered calls, a message came through saying “Yors”, Yorgen’s nickname. He called back. It was Fenech. “Go to Keith and collect something,” he told Vella. He did not say what. “He wasn’t agitated; he was calm.”

Vella insisted he never asked what he was collecting. He assumed that, since Fenech was at home, he was free. At Schembri’s house, the cleaner let him in. Schembri’s then-wife was there, and Schembri was in the shower as the couple were heading to an event in Girgenti. Schembri came halfway down the stairs, pointed towards a table next to Vella and said, “Those”.

“I took those papers. I didn’t see what was on them. They were facing down.” There were between four and six, Vella said, though he could not remember exactly. He folded them twice and put them in his jacket without reading them.

He was then shown the alleged notes, which detailed a plot to frame Chris Cardona for the murder. Vella said he had never seen them. The handwriting was not his, he said, and resembled Fenech’s.

Vella took the papers to Fenech’s Portomaso apartment. “I got the fright of my life. Half the depot was there.”

Fenech was in what Vella called the whiskey room, with his lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran. “There were so many police there. I was scared. I just passed on the notes to Caruana Curran.”

Fenech got up and pulled the papers away before Caruana Curran could take them, Vella said, and could not read them. Vella asked him to read them out to him. Fenech told him absolutely not.

“If you asked me today what was in them, I would tell you I have no idea, I never looked,” Vella said.

“Yorgen took the note – went to another room, got some papers, and then started writing. He was speaking to himself, saying: it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be. He wasn’t even reading; he was writing. He wasn’t right. I heard him say: if I go down, they go down with me.”

Fenech’s wife then came in to say she was leaving with the children. At that moment, Vella said, Fenech threw the papers aside and paid them no further attention.

Vella left at 12:30pm. He said he probably updated Schembri afterwards, on WhatsApp or Signal, telling him what had happened. He could not remember what Schembri said back.

At around 6pm he received a call from Caruana Curran asking him to come over so they could talk. The lawyer told him: “If you don’t come, there’s a chance [Yorgen] could get 30 years.” Vella asked him to call back in a quarter of an hour. He never did.

At 11pm, police came knocking at Vella’s door. He did not open it, assuming they had come for him over the paper he had passed to Fenech. He called Schembri at around 11:30pm to tell him police had come to arrest him, and Schembri told him to let them in. “I can’t remember what he told me,” he said.

It was at least 30 minutes before he opened the door. He was then taken to police headquarters and questioned by Keith Arnaud, Kurt Zahra and Lawrence Cutajar.

Vella was tearful at points on the stand – saying that his life has been ruined by affairs.

Dr Jean Pierre Degiorgio, Dr John Debono and Dr Ethel Felice testified together. They had been engaged to examine Theuma’s psychological condition after the attempt, and specifically to establish whether he was in a position to give evidence.

They concluded that Theuma developed a “mixed anxiety and depression disorder” after the murder. They said his symptoms are under control, that his cognitive faculties are unimpaired, and that he can testify, though possibly not at length.

Theuma told them he had no mental health problems until the day of the murder, when “[his] eyes were opened”, and he realised what had happened. From that day he suffered severe anxiety, which the experts described as remorse both for what he had done and for the effect on his family.

He began to fear losing everything, including his son. He was medicating with prescribed pills and alcohol, and later with Ativan and alcohol. He had thoughts of jumping, the experts said, but thoughts of his son held him back.

On the eve of one of his appearances in the compilation of evidence, Theuma slit his throat with a knife while alone, then stabbed himself six times in the abdomen with the same knife. The experts said he had intended to go up and jump but slipped in his own blood and could not get up. When he could not be contacted, his partner was called and found him on the floor.

He was taken to hospital and began treatment. The experts said that after his discharge he had no further episodes of that kind, but remained low, anxious, fearful and despondent.

Theuma told the experts he had paid Alfred and George Degiorgio out of his own pocket, fearing that if he asked Fenech for the money, Fenech would think he was keeping it for himself. He told Inspector Keith Arnaud that he wished Matthew Caruana Galizia, one of Caruana Galizia’s sons, would forgive him.

The experts also said a question put to Theuma by lawyer Jason Azzopardi, asking whether he had considered Caruana Galizia’s family before she was killed, had stayed with him. Theuma told them he continued to find it difficult to give evidence in front of the Caruana Galizia family, and in front of Fenech and his defence team, because he felt they were mocking him.

In later examinations, the experts said Theuma continued to suffer periods of low mood but had no further suicidal thoughts, and they found no evidence of other mental health problems. He was willing to continue with psychological treatment.

Giannella de Marco’s cross-examination for the defence targeted the timeline of Theuma’s will. The experts said Theuma had made his will when he began thinking of ending his life. De Marco put it to them that the Degiorgio brothers were arrested on 4 December 2017 and that the will was made three days later, on 7 December 2017, referring the court to the will as exhibited in Magistrate Sonia Consiglio’s inquiry.

The experts said they could not assist on that point. Their remit, they told the court, was to establish whether Theuma was in a fit mental state to give evidence, and it was not their task to verify what he told them or to question him about matters outside that assessment.

De Marco also established that the experts met Theuma twice, the first time on 20 November 2020, and that he was already under psychiatric care elsewhere before the attempt. Asked what had prompted the attempt, the experts said Theuma had not given them the reasons, and that what leads a person to attempt suicide is never a single cause.

Fenech’s data

Inspector Brian Paul Camilleri of the Financial Crimes Investigation Department gave jurors a further breakdown of data extracted from Fenech’s devices. He told the court he had supervised a task force that analysed the material by keyword search, working in parallel with a Europol task force, and that anything of interest was flagged and passed to investigators.

Among the material put to him was the “No Valletta, No Party” WhatsApp group. Camilleri said he did not recall every member but named Fenech, Keith Schembri and Silvio Valletta; the prosecution also put Joe Cuschieri’s name to him.

A second group, named Sassicaia, included Fenech, Schembri and JM. Camilleri said JM and Fenech left that group within a minute of one another on 29 October 2019, and Schembri left on 31 October.

Chats between Fenech and other prominent figures were also displayed. They included exchanges with Rosianne Cutajar, Konrad Mizzi, Marvin Gaerty, Heathcliff Farrugia, Catherine Halpin, Pierre Portelli and Saviour Balzan.

Camilleri confirmed that 17 Black changed its name to Wings Development and then to Wings Investments on 11 March 2017. He said the analysis also contained references to bitcoin transactions with Anthony Farrugia, a former business partner.

The court repeatedly limited the scope of his evidence. Citing its decree of 1 August 2026, it held that Camilleri is not an investigating officer in these proceedings but an investigator in other cases involving Fenech and third parties, and that while he could say whether a document had come to his attention through the task force, he could not testify about any investigation he had carried out into it.

The judge also stopped the prosecution’s questioning of individual messages, telling counsel that the witness had made it clear he did not remember them, and warned about the volume of material being put to the jury.

The sitting was twice interrupted by clashes between counsel. A redacted version of a statement by Fenech, exhibited by former criminal courts registrar Eunice Grech Fiorini, turned out to be legible underneath the redaction. By the time the defence raised the point, the document had been uploaded to the jurors’ tablets and displayed on the courtroom screens for several minutes.

Charles Mercieca, for the defence, called the redaction “a joke” and said it was the second time the prosecution had done this. The court said it had made the redactions itself and that the defence had been given a copy. As the exchange continued, the court found both Mercieca and the prosecuting lawyer, Godwin Cini, in contempt and fined them €50 each. It ordered the document to be re-redacted and the flawed version deleted from the jurors’ tablets.

The court later warned both sides about their conduct and said further contempt findings would follow if it continued. It is the second time in a fortnight that counsel have been fined €50 for contempt in this trial.

The defence also failed in a bid to have passages referring to Fenech’s request for a presidential pardon removed from a statement the prosecution intends to put to the jury. Mercieca relied on decrees of 2 and 4 July 2026, which he said barred any witness from bringing the fact of the pardon request, or its content, to the jurors’ knowledge.

The court said it ruled on the statement’s admissibility on 19 June 2025 – and that Fenech had been cautioned and legally assisted when it was taken, and that he had not objected at the time.

The weapons and cyanide emails

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

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

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

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

Silvio Valletta

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

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

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

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

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

Melvin Theuma

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

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

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

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

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

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

Logan Wood: Fenech’s captain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The trial continues tomorrow.

Over a sitting repeatedly interrupted by points of law and two contempt fines, Matthew Caruana Galizia, Daphne’s son, described a period of roughly two years in which he and his mother worked together on the Panama Papers leak and on a separate set of internal ElectroGas documents. This effort continued after her assassination in October 2017.

Fenech is on trial for complicity and criminal association in Daphne’s murder. He has pleaded not guilty.

The two of them began working in parallel in 2015, when Caruana Galizia began processing the Mossack Fonseca material, as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Panama Papers investigation, and found Maltese names in it.

The leak, he stressed, was live, meaning ICIJ received data on a rolling basis. The material he was receiving stopped around 15th December 2015, when uploads were halted to allow journalists to work on what was already in the system.

“Without the leak, most of us would have never known; we wouldn’t be here today,” he said.

Daphne was not formally part of the team – and worked with an Australian journalist on the material. There were no Maltese partners in the investigation, and, given the names mentioned, Caruana Galizia felt the need to pass on the information to Daphne.

He recalled an incident on 18th January 2016, during a libel hearing in a defamation case brought by Konrad Mizzi and his wife against his mother. As Mizzi was leaving the courtroom, he said she remarked to him that his money was hidden. From that point, “the cat was out of the bag”.

Jurors were shown Daphne’s first blog post, published on 22nd February 2016, which hinted at the Panama material and referenced New Zealand. The Panama companies of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi were placed inside New Zealand trusts, an additional layer of secrecy. The Panama Papers were published on 3rd April 2016.

The prosecution then took the witness to a message from Daphne.

In the message, she asked him to confirm whether two companies, 17 Black and Macbridge, both in the UAE, appeared in the Panama Papers leak, referring to an email sent by Nexia BT partner Karl Cini in December 2015. At that point, he had not heard of them – and the Panama Papers data (as it had been processed) had not extended beyond that point.

After Daphne’s murder, more data from the leak was processed, and the email his mother had been referring to was discovered. “Everything in her message turned out to be true,” he said.

Sent by Cini to an employee of the Panama law firm and copied to a lawyer assigned to the two companies, the message described Tillgate and Hearnville, Panama companies owned by Schembri and Mizzi, as being used for holding or operational purposes across maritime, fisheries, and gaming interests. 17 Black and Macbridge, registered in Dubai, were the listed target clients.

Both men have consistently denied wrongdoing in connection with the Panama structures. Schembri said in this trial that the structure was created to protect his business interests.

The search for the owner of 17 Black became, in his words, an “all-consuming mission”. He travelled to the UAE more than once. On the last trip, in November 2019, he took a taxi to a company registry in Ajman where he suspected 17 Black was registered.

He was refused entry by a security guard. He appealed to a member of staff, explaining that the company was linked to his mother’s murder. She took him to an office, where he heard her arguing with a colleague. He was then told to go home.

That changed once Fenech was arrested soon after. On Fenech’s devices, disclosed to him as parte civile during the compilation of evidence, was the certificate he had been hunting for.

The court was then shown a board resolution recovered from those devices, dated 29th February 2016, recording Fenech as shareholder and director of 17 Black. This was less than a week after Daphne’s first blog post on the Panama material on 22nd February 2016.

ElectroGas

Caruana Galizia said that on a trip to Malta in late 2016 or early 2017, his mother told him she was receiving emails from inside ElectroGas. This consortium had won the tender to convert Malta’s power generation from heavy fuel oil to gas in 2013.

There were thousands of documents, she said, and she needed a secure way to receive them, which he helped with. The two of them had planned an ElectroGas investigation on a scale comparable to the Panama Papers. It was never published.

“It was like a portal opened up, and I could see into hell,” he said, adding that they regarded the tendering process as “corrupt”.

His account of what he saw in the documents drew repeated objections. Those documents and emails, he said, showed the company in financial difficulty, with complaints about unpaid bills. Fenech was in correspondence and a focus of key conversations.

He took jurors through a series of emails. This included exchanges about how to respond to her blog posts, namely on ElectroGas’ financial troubles. Those financial issues were confirmed in the email exchange.

One email, he said, concerned the consortium’s inability to meet a loan deadline of 30th September. In another, a member of the consortium asked Fenech whether telling “big K” on Monday about a purchase would buy them some time. Caruana Galizia told the jury that references to “Big K” in the emails were to Keith Schembri, at which point the judge instructed him not to interpret the documents.

Another, sent to Fenech by an ElectroGas executive, discussed a possible reaction to a blog post his mother had published in May 2017 detailing the financial issues.

That post, published on 25th May 2017, reported trouble at the ElectroGas power station, that the company was not paying creditors or salaries, and that sources said it was still not producing energy and was operating at a fraction of capacity.

The leaked data showed the company having trouble paying invoices, and the internal emails that followed confirmed her reporting. He added that the consortium was concerned about the effect media coverage was having on its ability to secure additional loans.

An FIAU report, which focused on kickbacks from the ElectroGas project and was revealed by The Malta Independent, recorded that 17 Black was to receive payments as part of the scheme.

An email from the same week, dated 26th May 2017, circulated the FIAU material internally, noting that 17 Black was now out based on a leaked report and linking it to the earlier story.

Another email from Fenech to his wife, listing the reasons for his troubles. Point 5 was ElectroGas and “17-“.

One of the first stories from a consortium brought together after Daphne’s murder was that ElectroGas had notified the government it was in default of its contract because it had run out of money.

“I didn’t know who to trust after the murder,” he said.

The Last Day

Caruana Galizia experienced his mother’s murder first hand. He was in Malta on 16th October, at home with Daphne. He woke up that morning after his father had left the house, opened his laptop and got to work.

“I didn’t even notice the time pass. My mother made me some lunch. She saw I hadn’t eaten anything. She had a phone call and left the house. We agreed I would use the car that evening. She came back in. She had forgotten my dad’s chequebook – her account was frozen at the time, and he would sign cheques she could use. Then she left for the last time.”

“I was working on my programming and listening to music. And soon after she left the house, I heard an extremely loud explosion.”

His first thought was a gas tank. A split second later, he opened the front door. He felt the sunlight. The dog was barking. “I just felt blood draining from my body because I felt something terrible had happened, even though I didn’t know what,” he told jurors.

He went down the lane towards the main road, walking faster and faster until he was running. He saw a tall column of smoke, like “burning tyres”.

“The road was on fire. I saw pieces of metal, then pieces of flesh. I still did not understand what was happening. My eyes followed the smoke, and I saw a huge ball of fire in the middle of a field. I ran towards it. The horn was going off. It just wouldn’t stop.”

“I looked through the fire and saw a black shadow in the car. I thought, “That’s my mum”. I looked around to see if there was something I could use to open the door. Then I saw a leg on the ground. I thought: for nothing, it’s over.”

“As terrible as it sounds, I was hoping it was someone else’s car.”

A woman and a young girl on the road asked him what to do. He told them to call the police. He never saw them again. A police car arrived. They took out a fire extinguisher. He was shouting at them to use it.

“One of them was crying. He told me it was useless”.

His memories beyond that moment are faded. More police and firefighters arrived. He sat down on the road, barefoot, trying to contact family members before they found out via news reports.

“I got through to my little brother. I told him there was a bomb. I didn’t have the heart to tell him there was no hope”.

Before that point, he told the court, he had been a regular person. He went to work, took holidays when he had leave, spent time with his friends. After the murder, all of that was forgotten. “My work became the investigation. It became justice.”

“I hardly had a day of rest and neither did anyone else in my family. We felt an enormous sense of responsibility to ensure there was justice. The work had to be done now or never. We had to make it our mission.”

“I put all of my energy into this. This is not something an ordinary person should do – but we couldn’t just sit back and expect things to happen on their own. We had to build a path forward. We were stretched to the bone. This wasn’t months – but years. Our efforts created progress. So I think we did the right thing.”

“The most important thing in my life is justice, and that’s it. My father once said he was worried about what I was doing. I told him I didn’t care as long as we get justice. Once we get that, I can disappear – nothing else matters to me.”

Daphne’s Laptop

Caruana Galizia confirmed that Daphne’s laptop was taken to the German Federal Police, who offered the Maltese authorities the opportunity to send questions and requests for data to be searched.

It remained in the German Federal Police’s custody for an extended period. Eventually, they asked the family what they wanted to do with the original and copies of the data extracted from the laptop. The family informed them that they could delete the copies as long as the originals are maintained.

The originals were handed over to the family’s lawyers, where they have remained ever since.

Lawyer Jason Azzopardi, appearing for the Caruana Galizia family, was fined €50 twice during the sitting, over remarks following the defence team’s objections.

“Shame,” he said following a Mercieca interjection dismissing what Daphne told her son as opinion. “I’m not the one who bribes witnesses,” he added.

The trial continues tomorrow.

“I am not the mastermind,” the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said, telling the court he was “600 million per cent” certain he had no connection to Caruana Galizia’s killing or to the men accused of carrying it out.

Asked why he thought Fenech had named him, Schembri said Fenech knew him inside out and that it had been the easiest way out. He said the allegation had cost him his business and his banking relationships.

“I will never forget the friendship I had with him,” he said.

The denial came at the close of a long cross-examination by Giannella de Marco, who appears for Yorgen Fenech. Fenech, who is accused of commissioning the October 2017 car bomb that killed the journalist, has alleged that the murder originated with Schembri. Schembri is not charged in connection with the murder and has consistently denied any role in it. He is charged with leaking information on the case.

The missing phone

De Marco returned repeatedly to Schembri’s mobile phone, which has never been recovered.

Schembri said that on the morning of his arrest he received a call at 5:03am from Dr Adrian Vella, his and Fenech’s personal doctor, who told him people were knocking at his door. Asked why he assumed these were police officers, Schembri said it was obvious to him, because he had been told that Fenech had turned his statement against him.

De Marco put it to him that this account could not stand, because Vella had been arrested at 12:30am. Schembri did not identify who had informed him. Pressed on whether the police commissioner or the officers leading the investigation had tipped him off, he said he did not remember and insisted he had no close relationship with then commissioner Lawrence Cutajar.

Schembri said he had resigned shortly before officers came for him, and that Muscat had told him he was doing the right thing.

He told the court that workmen were at his house that morning, both moving furniture indoors and working near the pool, and suggested one of them might have taken the phone. De Marco noted that this account had not appeared in his statements or earlier testimony, that neither investigators nor scene-of-crime officers had recorded workers inside the house, and that photographs showed no works under way.

“I was going through a trauma at the time, from chief of staff to being arrested,” Schembri said. “To this day, I still don’t know where it is.”

The note passed to his doctor

De Marco pressed Schembri on the note that Adrian Vella is alleged to have carried from Schembri’s home to Fenech.

Schembri denied handing over any paper. He said he had told Vella to “go upstairs, there are some papers, take what you want,” and that Vella had taken it himself. He said no fingerprints of his were found on the document, and that he had never seen it before. He added that he could not go further because he had been instructed not to refer to the first pardon request.

De Marco put to him that Vella, who was accustomed to reading Schembri’s blood test results, would have been able to tell a set of test results from a handwritten note. Schembri maintained he had not touched the paper.

Theuma, Camilleri and Cremona

Schembri repeated that he did not know Melvin Theuma and had met him only when Theuma came to Castille, where he said he passed him on to the head of HR, Sandro Craus, after Theuma asked him for a job. He denied giving Theuma a tour of the building and denied ever asking him to kill Caruana Galizia.

On Kenneth Camilleri, the former security officer who has testified about being sent to keep Theuma calm, Schembri said Camilleri bore a grudge against him because he had once threatened to sack him for carrying weapons into Castille. Asked why he had never raised this before, he replied: “Why did I need to say it?”

De Marco put Camilleri’s and Johann Cremona’s accounts to him in turn. 

Schembri said both were lying. Asked in sequence about scene-of-crime officers, Camilleri, Cremona, Theuma, Adrian Vella and the journalist Saviour Balzan, he maintained that each had either lied or was mistaken.

The defence also produced screenshots of Schembri’s call log showing a contact saved as “Rukkell,” which the court has heard belongs to Camilleri, with an answered incoming call at 12:12. The court noted that the date of the screenshot cannot be established from the metadata, which records only when the image was accessed.

David Gatt and the August 2017 calls

Schembri said former police inspector and lawyer David Gatt had lobbied him to be made ambassador to Israel, and described an incident in which he returned to his office to find Gatt undressed, saying he had done so to show he had nothing to hide. Schembri said he told him to get dressed and leave, and that investigators had advised him to steer clear of Gatt.

De Marco put call and location data to him showing that Gatt and Schembri were in the same antenna area on the morning of 16 August 2017, that they spoke at 11:40am, and that Schembri called Gatt again at 5pm. 

Schembri said the calls concerned the Israeli ambassador and that he could not explain calls Gatt made afterwards. Dr Martin Bajada, assisting the court, took the jury through the call logs.

“Lorry told me Keith there’s nothing”

The defence exhibited a chat between Schembri and Muscat, marked KS2, in which Muscat asks which recording is in question and Schembri replies that it is not the one mentioned in court, that the story is invented, and that “Lorry” had told him there was nothing but that he would keep checking.

Schembri confirmed that “Lorry” was Lawrence Cutajar and that “there’s nothing” referred to material concerning himself. De Marco pointed out that he had already resigned by then, and asked why, if he was certain he had never spoken to Theuma, he was asking the police commissioner whether recordings mentioning him existed. Schembri said he could not explain the message because too much time had passed.

The paper on the Castille desk

De Marco produced a handwritten sheet recovered during the search of Schembri’s Castille office, visible in the search video. It carried a reference to Caruana Galizia’s blog dated 31 October 2016, an arrow, and the initials “PD,” alongside the date of the murder and the date of the Degiorgio brothers’ arrest.

Schembri first accepted the handwriting as his, then, on closer inspection, said only the initials “DCG” were his. He said the notes related to reports in the Italian media suggesting the murder was connected to diesel smuggling, and that he had passed that material to Saviour Balzan, with whom he said he shared stories. 

Balzan has told the court that Schembri confided the story to him; Schembri said Balzan was wrong, because the material had already appeared internationally.

Daphne’s writing about him

Asked whether Caruana Galizia had crossed a line when she wrote about his cancer diagnosis, Schembri said she had not done so with him, but had with his family and children. He said he had filed libel suits against her, which he believed concerned 17 Black, and had withdrawn them after her death.

He told the court he had developed a political thick skin and that his family had not, and said he asks his mother to pray for Caruana Galizia before he goes to sleep.

De Marco also returned to his earlier evidence that people from abroad had asked him why he had not got rid of the journalist. Schembri said these were investors from the Middle East, accustomed to a different environment, and that he had replied: “What, do we kill people like that?”

The trial continues.

“I froze… I don’t know where we were. We went out for a drink somewhere. He said things that led me to believe that he might have been the one who did it, and I just froze,” Schembri said.

“We burst out crying and then hugged each other and went home.”

“I didn’t speak to anyone…maybe because he was my friend. I made one single mistake: when I started hearing things, I didn’t go straight to the Prime Minister. That was a huge mistake and a heavy cross to bear.”

“I froze because: 1)I had an obligation to keep the government going; 2) He was my friend; His kids were good friends with my kids; Our wives were good friends.”

He was unclear on the timeline of the episode, saying this happened after Fenech was identified as a potential suspect by investigators. This puts it roughly in the months leading up to Theuma and Fenech’s arrest in November 2019.

Schembri, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, revealed the detail during his second day of testimony in the trial against Fenech over the murder. Since his arrest, Fenech and his legal team have claimed that it was Schembri who actually ordered and commissioned the assassination. Schembri outright denied Fenech’s claims.

George Degiorgio, one of the men convicted of carrying out the killing, has also implicated him. Schembri called that “an outright lie” and said he had never even known the men involved, apart from Fenech.

Asked whether he had been at a meeting between Muscat, Fenech and himself at which Theuma was discussed, he answered: “I certainly wasn’t at that meeting.”

Schembri faced intense questioning on his communication with Fenech, particularly the day before the businessman was arrested on board his cabin cruiser on 20th November 2019.

Jurors were presented with screenshots of Signal conversations & calls between Schembri and Fenech.

The day before Fenech’s arrest, Fenech sent Schembri an article revealing that the middleman in the murder had been granted a pardon.

“At about 9:30 pm, I received a call from Joseph Muscat – he told me that the Malta Security Services and Armed Forces informed him that Yorgen was planning to escape. He told me to call him and do all I could to stop him. I called. Yorgen told me that he was planning to go to Sicily for a few days. I told him that for the sake of myself and the Prime Minister, he wouldn’t escape, as it would put the spotlight on me.

The prosecution pressed him on his own vocabulary, noting that he had first said Fenech was going to “escape” and then that he was going to “remove himself from the country”. Schembri said he might have changed the word.

“Yorgen was talking to me strongly, not quite aggressive, but he was asking me: He got the pardon? He got the pardon? He got the pardon? This was already open source information.”

The call, Schembri said, lasted about 24 minutes. “We spoke about a lot of things. He told me he was going to Sicily for two days. I always told him – please for me, do not escape the island,” Schembri said.

“Help me. Don’t leave me alone. Give me support,” Fenech wrote to Schembri in a chat. Two calls later, Schembri replies: “I am giving it to you – you need to be aggressive and fight”. “It’s either one or the other?” Schembri added. Fenech told he has seen the media at the marina and still wants to leave.

“I was trying to calm him down. I was telling him I would help him, even if I couldn’t. He either was going to escape or turn himself in. He needed to fight to clear his name. I knew he wouldn’t take the option to fight,” Schembri explained to the court. Fenech told he has seen the media at the marina but still wants to leave.

“I then went to sleep. At 5 am I was at the gym – and my phone exploded with news about the arrest.”

Schembri outright denied that he provided anyone, particularly Fenech, with information about Theuma’s pardon – and insisted that he was in no way involved in the discussions over whether or not to grant it.

“It was open source by that point” – a phrase Schembri used regularly to explain how Fenech was aware of certain details of the investigation.

Secret Recordings Name Schembri’s Involvement In Passing Information

A secret recording Theuma took of a conversation with Fenech was played in court. The tape, ‘Voice 007’, shows Fenech and Theuma discussing Schembri by name.

The propositions put to him, drawn line by line from the tape, focused on the description of a man positioned between the murder investigation and the men who would later be charged over it.  

Twice on the tape Fenech tells Theuma that Schembri had gone into the fire for him. Asked what that meant, Schembri returned to a formulation he used throughout the day: Fenech was his friend, and wherever he could help him, he had helped him.

The most direct allegation came not from the tape but from Fenech’s own statement to police, which counsel put to him flatly: that Fenech had obtained details of the investigation from Schembri and passed them on to Theuma. Schembri said this was not true.

Jurors were also shown a handwritten note found on Fenech when he was arrested. In it, Theuma sets out that he was the middleman in the killing, names Schembri and Fenech as the two men who paid for it, and says both of them were working to have him killed as well. 

He wrote that he had gathered the evidence so that it would be found even if they killed him.

Asked why Theuma had named him alongside Fenech, Schembri said: “Ask him.” Asked why the note was in Fenech’s possession, he said the same.

“I was the biggest prize in the equation,” he said.

He added that he had read in one outlet that Theuma had said he used the photograph in the ice-cream box to blackmail him. Schembri’s account of that photograph is that it was taken at Castille and that Sandro Craus told him to move closer so that the Prime Minister would also be in frame.

The arrest and ‘lost’ mobile phone

The arrest of Keith Schembri – and the privileges he was afforded as the second-most powerful man in Malta behind the Prime Minister – have been a key focus of testimonies, grabbing headlines over the police’s handling of a potential suspect.

“We were informed that around [the lead investigator] told us to collect all devices indicated to us by Keith Schembri,” PC Michelle Camilleri told the court. This was confirmed by another police officer, PC Mario Azzopardi.

This was on top of other irregularities regarding the arrest, including officers not being told the purpose of the search in advance and the presence of Schembri’s lawyers, Mark Vassallo and Edward Gatt.

This has been a sticking point for jurors. Schembri “lost” his phone the day of the arrest. It was last active at 5 am, around an hour before his arrest. Under questioning, Schembri confirmed that he had workmen at his house from 5:30 am, and that one of them could have taken it.

He only realised it was lost at the police depot. Officers returned to the house and searched again without finding it

“I don’t know where I left it. I know it’s a hard thing for the jurors to believe,” he said.

Hundreds of photographs were taken by police officers that day. One photo showed two mobile phones that officers did not seize.

“Let me explain it clearly to you. I was arrested in the morning, searched and taken to the depot. I then went back with scene of crime officers. By then, my mother, father, Neville Gafa and the nanny were home. Those mobiles belong to them. 100%,” Schembri said.

A search at Schembri’s office in Castille uncovered a detail not previously known. Schembri kept folders containing Daphne’s blog posts, written about him and the government. Those folders contained all articles about the government, including those written by other journalists and media houses.

“I never used laptops or computers – just mobiles,” he said.

The Doctor and The Note

Schembri and Fenech’s mutual doctor, Adrian Vella, has been central the trial and the accusations of Schembri’s links to the murder. According to Vella’s previous statements to police, he went to Schembri’s house, while Fenech was out on police bail, and Schembri passed on a note. That note was given to Fenech, who says it contained a plot to frame Chris Cardona for the murder.

Schembri outright denied involvement – and said that he passed on health-related reports. He said the first time he saw the note was under interrogation. Experts have previously confirmed that Schembri’s fingerprints were not among the 70 found on the note. 

He further revealed that the weekend prior to Fenech’s arrest – Vella informed him that he was visiting Fenech in Gozo “because he needed him”. This was the day after Theuma was arrested. Schembri provided few details beyond that.

The WhatsApp Group: Fenech, Schembri, the Deputy Police Commissioner and MGA CEO

Schembri confirmed that he had been in a WhatsApp group with Fenech and with Silvio Valletta, the deputy police commissioner who oversaw the murder investigation until he was removed from it over his links to Fenech. 

Also in the group, Schembri said, were Joe Cuschieri, then chief executive of the Malta Gaming Authority, and Kenneth Azzopardi, Schembri’s own assistant at Castille. 

He said the group was for jokes, “trying to break up the day”, and confirmed he had seen Valletta at Fenech’s ranch.

He told the court that during the investigation, he and Valletta had agreed between them that the case against Fenech did not fit. “He agreed with me that it made no sense for Yorgen to do something like that.”

Schembri then volunteered an exchange with Valletta from before the assassination.

“I told him, God forbid they kill her – you take all the files and shred them,” he said. “It was a joke.”