Yorgen Fenech's lawyers suggest Keith Schembri involved in plot to kill Daphne Caruana Galizia

Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers have raised questions about evidence that, they say, indicates the involvement of Keith Schembri and others in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in a pre-trial hearing this morning.

This emerges from the submissions made before Madam Justice Edwina Grima this morning as well as decrees that were handed down yesterday by the Criminal Court on three applications that were filed by Fenech’s lawyers earlier this month.

Fenech is awaiting trial for commissioning the car bomb which claimed the life of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017.

In the first application Fenech’s lawyers had asked the court to declare inadmissible a number of references to several statements that Fenech had released to the police, and which had subsequently been declared inadmissible. The statements in question are understood to be those made by Fenech in connection with his request for a Presidential pardon for his part in the murder.

Madam Justice Edwina Grima observed that the inadmissibility of that evidence had already been declared and confirmed on appeal, but stressed that no witness would be permitted to make any reference to those statements during the trial. “Definitely. No reference will be made to them in any way,” she told the parties this morning.

The second application requested the exhibition of a number of magisterial inquiries into different crimes. From one of them, Fenech requested access to data extracted from the mobile phone used by former OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri as evidence in Fenech’s trial over the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

Deputy Attorney General Philip Galea Farrugia had objected to the phone data being exhibited in the murder case, describing it as a “fishing expedition.” The Deputy AG argued that Fenech’s lawyers had to prove the relevance of the contents of Schembri’s phone to this case, and pointed out that Schembri’s phone data had been extracted as part of a magisterial inquiry into unconnected financial crimes that had allegedly been committed by Keith Schembri and nine others, related to Schembri’s Kasco group winning the tender for the construction of Allied Group’s €30 million printing press in Mrieħel.

Lawyer Charles Mercieca, appearing for Fenech, explained to the court why the defence felt the phone was relevant in the murder case, this morning. “Keith Schembri’s phone disappeared on the night before his arrest. He is mentioned everywhere….Melvin Theuma didn’t have a photo with Yorgen Fenech, he had a photo with Keith Schembri at Castille. He indicated Keith Schembri as the person who entangled him in this mess.”

Galea Farrugia replied that he was not privy to the inquiry, but said that he was “informed that there is personal information about third parties also on Keith Schembri’s phone. I am led to believe that it has no relevance to this case, but I don’t object to the request…as long as uninvolved third parties are protected.”

As for the other magisterial inquiries requested by Fenech, namely that probe into a leak of confidential documents from ElectroGas, the inquiry into Melvin Theuma’s alleged suicide attempt on the eve of his testimony and the inquiry into leaks from the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, Galea Farrugia submitted that only one had been completed.

During this morning’s hearing, the judge asked Merceica about the relevance of Fenech’s request to summons a number of witnesses, including MaltaToday editor Kurt Sansone, Times of Malta journalist Jacob Borg and a representative from the Shift News to testify about reports on George Degiorio’s podcast interview with Reuters’ Stephen Grey as well as other stories dealing with alleged attempts to “frame” Keith Schembri for the murder and threats to Schembri’s life.

“It is being alleged that Darren Debono was the victim of a frame up by Keith Schembri,” Merceica said.

“Both Darren Debono and Ram Tumuluri’s evidence deal with Keith Schembri’s involvement in the murder,” Merceica replied. “Yorgen Fenech is saying ‘I’m not the mastermind. The real mastermind is a third party.’ The police must do their job.”

Tumuluri’s claim to have been threatened was irrelevant, said the lawyer, telling the judge that he wanted the journalists who wrote about this to testify in order to give context because the defence had learned of these matters after the bill of indictment was served on Fenech.

“Melvin Theuma received a pardon which obliges him to testify wherever required. In the eventuality that he doesn’t testify, the pardon will be withdrawn,” submitted the defence lawyer. “He must be confronted with this fact, because it is the prosecution which bound itself to Theuma’s credibility.”

Mercieca reminded the court that Theuma had chosen not to take the stand when he had been asked to testify in the presence of Keith Schembri.

In his replies, Deputy Attorney General Philip Galea Farrugia said that Darren Debono’s claims were only his opinion. “He believes that someone tried to frame him. In the early days of the investigation, when the police were still trying to establish the motive for the murder, fuel smuggling was considered as a possible motive.” Debono was never mentioned by name, however, Galea Farrugia said. “It is not admissible.”

“With respect to Ram Tumuluri, if Keith Schembri told him that he ‘could end up like Daphne,’ does this show that Keith Schembri was involved in the murder?”

The Deputy AG disagreed with Mercieca on the subject of Theuma’s pardon. “While it was true that he must testify about several crimes, which were listed, what happened was that his lawyers requested assurance that his pardon covered those proceedings too and when this assurance wasn’t given, he chose not to testify.”

Mercieca corrected Galea Farrugia, telling the court that the prosecution and the magistrate had both concluded that Theuma’s pardon covered Theuma’s involvement in that crime.  “The pardon mentions five crimes and includes any crime committed before the date of the pardon.”

“The AG qualified Debono as an opinion…we do not agree and say it is a conclusion about a state of fact as Debono perceived it…It is also corroborated by Saviour Balzan’s testimony during the public inquiry,”  Mercieca said.

“In order to have said everything, Balzan had subsequently reported Debono to the police for harassing his journalists,” Galea Farrugia added.

Mercieca told the judge not to forget that Keith Schembri had sent a letter to Yorgen Fenech during the investigation. 

Lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran, who is also appearing for Fenech, stood up and addressed the judge. ““Keith Schembri told Ram Tumuluri to find him someone [to kill Daphne],” he said.
 

The court, having heard the parties submissions, announced that it would be issuing a decree on this request from chambers.

Fenech’s emphasis on Schembri, while not new -he is reported to have told the police as much in November 2019- indicates the likely direction that his defence team will be taking in his eventual trial by jury. 

Melvin Theuma, the self-confessed middleman between the three assassins and Fenech, who had been pardoned in return for his testimony, had also told the compilation of evidence against the assassins that Fenech and his business associate Johann Cremona had planned to implicate former economy minister Chris Cardona in Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.  In February 2021, less than a week after his courtroom admission of guilt for Caruana Galizia’s assassination, Vince Muscat was also reported as implicating Cardona in a 2015 plot to kill the journalist which was subsequently abandoned. Cardona was never charged.