Times journalist feared ‘trap’ after meeting Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers

Times of Malta journalist Ivan Martin has told a court that after allegedly having been offered payment by Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers following a meeting, he had been worried that the whole encounter could have been a trap.

Martin was cross-examined on the witness stand by lawyer Giannella De Marco, who is appearing together with lawyer Steven Tonna Lowell for lawyers Charles Mercieca and Gianluca Caruana Curran, before magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras earlier today. Mercieca and Caruana Curran stand accused of attempting to bribe the journalist.

During his 90-minute grilling, Martin declined to answer certain questions which he felt could impinge on journalist-source confidentiality.

He said he had first been in contact with Mercieca after the latter had quit his job at the Attorney General’s Office. The two had met on Friday 30th October and discussed Martin’s investigations into former Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar.

“Am I correct to state that you discussed the phone call between Cutajar and Edwin Brincat known as il Gojja which had come out during the cross-examination of Superintendent [Keith] Arnaud?”

“Yes on our meeting on Friday, our first in the office, we discussed this subject.” Martin replied.

Further meetings were agreed, he said. Martin confirmed that he had sent the lawyer a draft of an article he had written, based on this conversation and investigations of his own.

He said he had asked the lawyer whether he knew the date of the call to Cutajar. That was the only question he had put to him, Martin said. “There were other questions in my mind that I had not asked.”

The lawyer exhibited a copy of the article written by Martin and fellow journalist Jacob Borg, asking him whether it was the same article he had been referring to. Martin said that the article was not the same draft sent to lawyers, but another one written months before his meeting with them.

“We had then agreed to meet on the Monday to verify information and so on,” said the journalist. The meeting was at Mercieca’s office, said Martin. Codefendant Gianluca Caruana Curran was not there at the beginning, but had arrived later on.

De Marco asked the witness whether he had been in Gozo on the weekend before the meeting. “I believe not,” he replied. “What if I were to suggest if you were in Gozo with friends and came down on Monday?” probed the lawyer. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall.”

“At the meeting,” De Marco suggested, “Did you also tell them to be careful about what they say or have in their office as they must have a mole?”

“What I said was that a third party had leaked information to me,” Martin corrected. “I don’t know if I put it as a statement of fact or a hypothesis.”

De Marco suggested that what he had told them was that lawyer Jason Azzopardi had been “badgering him about this meeting.”

Martin said he didn’t recall this, but pressed by the defence, said he couldn’t exclude that he had been contacted by Azzopardi.

The defence lawyer asked what Azzopardi had wanted to talk to him about that very morning. Martin said he could not remember. “I don’t recall. I don’t want to testify about what I don’t recall. I don’t want to mislead the court,” he said.

De Marco said it was difficult to understand why he had no idea what the call was about. “Does he call you a lot?” asked the lawyer.  The witness replied in the affirmative, qualifying his answer. “I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people.”

“There’s no need to protect him so much,” teased De Marco. “Does he call you often? Does he talk to you about the case against Yorgen Fenech?” asked De Marco.

Martin stood firm, however. “This is in the realm of journalist/source communication and I would not like to answer.”

“This is not a libel case, it is a criminal case,” coaxed the lawyer. “I am telling you that if he is a source, fine but if not…does he call you about the Yorgen Fenech case?”

Martin respectfully declined to answer. The court asked defence to move on.

De Marco shifted to questions about his meeting with Caruana Curran and Mercieca. “You mentioned that when you spoke to Charles Mercieca and Caruana Curran they wanted to speak about media coverage bias against their client?” “Yes,” confirmed Martin.

“You mentioned as well that at the end of the meeting that Caruana Curran put forward his hand and that you didn’t notice it was money. Did it come into your hand?”

“Yes,” replied the journalist, “but it was passed back.”

Asked by the defence as to whether he had attended seminars on investigative journalism, he said he had received “very limited and sporadic training.” He didn’t recall telling the accused lawyers about this.

Confronted by De Marco as to whether he had a computer program that “gave him details about people”, he said no. The lawyer pressed him on the words “open source” that he had used with the lawyers during their meeting. “You mean Google? I use open source as a descriptor, not an actual program,” Martin said.

“You’re talking about a very brief online conference by Bellingcat to learn how to use open source information…I don’t have some special program that allows me…”

De Marco quipped that such a statement could impress a lawyer unduly.

Martin said he might have mentioned having just finished this conference.

The defence lawyer then suggested that he had even agreed to meet again with the accused sometime the next week as the meeting had been cut short.

Martin clarified that he wasn’t sure whether that happened before or after the offer of money.

“What you were worried about is that they might have taken a photo of you with the money in your hand?” asked De Marco.

“It was a consideration, for sure in hindsight,” Martin explained. “But it happened so fast, the rejection was a reflex.”

“After the incident happened there were a number of things I was worried about, one of them was that this might have been a trap.”

With that, De Marco said there were no further questions for the witness.

The case continues in November.

Superintendent James Grech and Inspector Anthony Scerri are prosecuting.

Lawyers Giannella De Marco and Stephen Tonna Lowell are defence counsel.