Jamie Vella fails in bid to obtain trial judge's recusal

A Criminal Court judge has refused Jamie Vella’s request for her recusal, pointing out that the outcome of his trial would be decided by a jury.

Vella is awaiting trial, along with brothers Adrian and Robert Agius, better known as Ta’ Maksar, and convicted hitman George Degiorgio, in connection with the murders of lawyer Carmel Chircop and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

At the start of their trial by jury in October, George Degiorgio, together with his brother Alfred, had admitted to having planted and set off the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia and is currently serving a 40-year jail term for this crime.

In a ruling handed down this afternoon, Madame Justice Edwina Grima decreed that there was “not the slightest proof as to where the prejudice complained of emerges.” The simple fact that the same judge had also presided the trial by jury of the men accused of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had been indicted for different offences, did not constitute grounds for her recusal.

The judge presiding over a trial by jury is not called upon to decide on the merits of the case, she added.