Yorgen Fenech’s defence team has filed an application requesting for the compilation of evidence against his client to resume as soon as possible, rather than on the next scheduled date on 6 October.

Businessman Fenech is charged with complicity in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The journalist was killed in a car bombing on 16 October 2017.

Fenech’s lawyers are also requesting that a copy of the magisterial inquiry into the murder is included in the records of the compilation.  The inquiry, they claim, was completed “months ago”.  It was originally conducted by Magistrate Anthony Vella, before it passed on to Magistrate Neville Camilleri owing to the former being elevated to Judge.

The application was filed on Friday in the Criminal Court, and also calls for the appointment of a court expert to preserve the phone data of witnesses in the case such as self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma, his relatives, and his associate Edwin Brincat – known as il-Gojja.

The data is necessary for the evidence in the case to be complete, Fenech’s team argued.

The application was signed by lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran, Marion Camilleri, and Charles Mercieca.