Two laptops and three hard drives belonging to slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia have been handed over to Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (BKA) by “family representatives,” Times of Malta reported this evening.
The German BKA confirmed that it had received the equipment to Daphne Project partners Süddeutsche Zeitung. The equipment was handed over to the German police on 27 April.
Originally it had been reported that Caruana Galizia's laptop was destroyed in the car bomb explosion on 16 October 2017 but it later turned out that this was not the case.
The police had taken possession of a laptop shortly after the assassination but it later emerged that this was an old laptop that had not been used for the previous two years.
Magistrate Anthony Vella, who is leading the murder inquiry, had confirmed that the police had requested him to take possession of the laptop but could not say whether he had asked the family for the computer.
A few weeks ago it emerged that Daphne Caruana Galizia had received tens of thousands of files related to the power station project.
Daphne’s sister Corinne had also been quoted as saying that the family did not trust the Maltese authorities with the laptop.
Daphne’s son Matthew had said he did not know where the laptop was but said he would rather burn it than give it to the Maltese police.
The apparent refusal by the family to hand over the laptop to the Maltese police has been exploited by one of the murder suspects, Alfred Degorgio, who claims that the laptop might hold information pertinent to his legal defence. He has claimed that his right to a fair trial was being breached by investigators’ failure to obtain the last laptop used by the slain journalist.
Another magistrate, Aaron Bugeja, who is leading the Egrant inquiry, has also been told by the BKA that they have the laptops and hard drives.
The Times said sources have explained that the German police had formally informed Bugeja of the development since they had already received a mutual assistance request from him over the Egrant inquiry.
The BKA, the Times said, had given Magistrate Bugeja access to data from the Panama Papers after his request last year. The data is related to the three Panama companies.
The magistrate can now formally ask the BKA for “backup copies” of the data from Caruana Galizia's laptops, Times of Malta says.
It could not be ruled out that other Maltese authorities will request copies of the data for use in cases not related to the Egrant inquiry.
The BKA said the regional prosecutor's office in Wiesbaden was not conducting its own investigation into the data on the laptops.