Judge hearing Keith Schembri's 'missing mobile' case calls urgent sitting

A judge has convoked an urgent sitting in the constitutional case filed by Keith Schembri after a court expert testifying in separate proceedings against Yorgen Fenech spoke of finding broken seals on the exhibit’s evidence bag.

This emerges from a court application filed on Monday by lawyers Edward Gatt, Mark Vassallo and Shaun Zammit, who are representing Schembri, the chief of staff of former prime minister Joseph Muscat. Schembri is claiming that his mobile phone had disappeared from evidence.

Mr Justice Mark Simiana, presiding over the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction subsequently issued a decree yesterday, bringing the next sitting forward to 2 February and ordering court expert Martin Bajada, who had reported the broken seals during the Fenech case, to testify.

The application states that Bajada had told the compiling magistrate that he was of the opinion the evidence had been tampered with.

The judge also ordered that the exhibit in question is not to be handed to anyone else for any reason, until his court gives permission to do so.

Schembri had filed the case last November, claiming a breach of his right to a fair hearing and requesting the phone be removed from evidence, alleging that the phone had disappeared for several weeks, before turning up amongst the exhibits in a separate case. 

This allegation has been denied by the magistrate compiling evidence against Schembri, who has also given her account of what had happened to the device in those proceedings, in which Schembri is accused of bribery and money laundering.