Brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, who are accused of planting and detonating the bomb which killed Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 have filed a judicial protest attacking the presidential pardon granted to alleged middleman Melvin Theuma.

In the judicial protest, which was filed this morning by lawyer William Cuschieri, the accused killers say that although the Attorney General had told the court in 26 November 2019 that it had been impossible to hear Theuma testify during the compilation of evidence because the facts took place almost 4 months after the filing of the bill of indictment, they had known about his information beforehand.

Cuschieri pointed to an exclusive story published by Newsbook, in which it said that Vincent Muscat had mentioned Theuma in April 2018. The article also quotes Muscat’s wife, Pauline, as saying ““It’s a complete injustice that Theuma should give evidence against Vince when Vince was the one that led police to him and helped solve this case. He is the one who should be pardoned, not Melvin.”

Neither had Theuma’s information been news to the police, Cuschieri said, as Fenech had already been a suspect in the murder and had been under surveillance by the Secret Service.

Information in the public domain, including the photograph published by the MaltaToday showing Keith Schembri and Melvin Theuma together, reveal that the factual presumptions upon which the pardon was based were not entirely true and that there was a serious conflict of interest in the decision to grant the pardon.

The protest asks that the pardon be revoked and warns that judicial proceedings will follow in default.