German investigators were told to delete copy of DCG laptop data

A claim by Labour Whip Glenn Bedingfield in the House that the Caruana Galizia family had “destroyed” the assassinated journalist’s laptop, has been gleaned from a letter from German police investigators to the Attorney General, saying they had deleted the data in their hands at the request of the family.

The letter is part of the developing magisterial inquiry into the assassination of the journalist, of which Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech stands accused of masterminding.

In the same week that Fenech’s lawyers requested that the courts they be handed over the journalist’s laptop, Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield protested in the House that the family had “destroyed” data that had been handed over to German police investigators.

The data is actually a copy handed over to Germany investigators.

But it is yet unclear how the convergence of the Labour MP with Fenech’s demands for the journalist’s laptop bears any significant weight to a case whose main witness, State evidence Melvin Theuma, has direct testimony of Fenech’s role in the assassination.

The German chief public prosecutor of Wiesbaden informed the Attorney General in Malta on 8 July 2019, that the Caruana Galizia family had asked for the “data to be deleted” after carrying out its own analysis of the hard-disc’s contents.

The request from the AG arrived late in the day, on 19 June 2019 - a year and a half after the assassination and in a period where, unbeknown to most, active steps were taken to derail the investigation.

In the letter, the German prosecutor said it had already informed Magistrate Aaron Bugeja of legal concerns against the executions of the investigation orders previously sent.

Thereafter, the Caruana Galizia family, as the legal owner of the data, asked that it be deleted. The Germans complied with the request.

Originally, the laptop had been handed over to the German federal police in a bid to protect Caruana Galizia’s sources. The move was carried out in full cooperation with Magistrate Anthony Vella.

Investigation’s derailment

The family’s jealous guardianship of that data has been vindicated by the events provoked by the arrest of Melvin Theuma, the middleman in the assassination, and of Yorgen Fenech: top brass in politics and the police force attempted to influence investigations in a bid to gain access to Theuma’s cache of recorded conversations with Fenech and other actors who were aware of the murder plot.

The revelations of political interference in the investigation, with Keith Schembri having been in indirect contact with Melvin Theuma after the assassination, and the connivance of former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, proved that there was no safe haven in Malta for the sources in the journalist’s laptop.

A court this week dismissed a request by Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers for two laptops and three drives belonging to Caruana Galizia to be presented as evidence. The court said the devices were not in the possession of the police and could not be presented. His lawyers claim the devices were important not only to prove Fenech’s innocence but also to test the version supplied by Theuma: ostensibly, his claim that Fenech wanted to protect his uncle, Ray Fenech, from Caruana Galizia’s revelations.

But Theuma himself has declared to leader investigator Keith Arnaud that this reference was only made once, and in the subsequent conversations with Fenech to carry out the hit, the reference to the information had clearly referred to him.

Fenech was the owner of 17 Black, a secret offshore firm in Dubai suspected of being planned as a conduit for kickbacks to the Panama offshore companies set up by former energy minister Konrad Mizzi and former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Fenech was a shareholder in Electrogas, the company that won a public tender to build a €200 million gas plant with an 18-year contract to procure LNG through shareholder SOCAR Trading, of Azerbaijan.

Caruana Galizia revealed the existence of 17 Black, without establishing its clear ownership, in February 2017.