Dutch MP Pieter Omtzigt has written a letter to Yorgen Fenech’s defence team, saying that it is clear that they did not understand his role as a supervisor of Malta’s international obligations.
Omtzigt, who is the Council of Europe’s rapporteur for follow-up on the report on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination and rule of law in Malta, was accused by Fenech’s defence through a letter by lawyer Wayne Jordash of Doughty Street Chambers which accused the MP of ignoring letters to see Fenech’s fair trial concerns.
“I realise now that you have been labouring under a fundamental misunderstanding of my function as an international oversight mechanism," Omtzigt wrote.
"My role is to supervise Malta’s fulfilment of its international obligations. My concerns relate to the existence, regulation and proper application of the state apparatus that is required to fulfil those obligations. I am not a judge in anyone’s case, nor anyone’s advocate or legal advisor.”
“So, when you ‘sought…my intervention and/or guidance on how to ameliorate the inflammatory and prejudicial press campaign that has the potential – and is likely- to have undermined Mr. Fenech’s fair trial rights ‘, you were asking me to do something that I had (mistakenly) thought was self-evidently inappropriate.”
The Dutch MP said that Fenech had his own legal team to advise him on these matters and to present any complaints to the appropriate domestic authorities and that he is not part of anyone’s team and does not give legal advice.
Fenech’s counsel had objected to statements by private citizens, in particular, members of the grieving family, on social media or in press reports but had not mentioned any efforts by Fenech to raise his complaints before domestic bodies, he said.
“Even given your misunderstanding of my role, it is surprising that Mr. Fenech expected me to raise these issues with the Maltese authorities even before he had instructed his own team of lawyers to do so. Once again: I am nobody’s advocate.”
The responsibility of safeguarding Fenech’s fair trial rights lied with Malta’s judges, said Omtzigt, “my role is to see whether they do their job.” If Fenech chose not to bring his complaints before those judges, the MP said, “he cannot expect me to do their job instead.”
He said that the lawyer’s letters had a number of references to international case-law but little the way of relevant particular: “I would be concerned if Mr. Fenech were denied his right to legal assistance of his own choosing. How Mr. Fenech’s lawyers present his case, however, is not my concern.”
Omtzigt rebutted the assertion that he ‘acted in support of the prosecution’ arguing that he has often criticised the investigation and prosecution of the Caruana Galizia murder case and noting that “you provide no details to support this claim.”
He also pointed out that Jordash had not expressed a wish that the correspondence between him and the MP be private and that, in any case, “it would have been unethical for me to conceal the fact that I had been asked for help by the person accused of being the instigator of the murder plot from which my report arose.”
“It is regrettable that I have been forced to continue our correspondence in public, but your aggressively public outburst makes it necessary for me to clarify my position in an open letter,” Omtzigt wrote, adding that he “need not take lessons on how to fulfil my independent and impartial mandate from the paid representative of someone with a personal interest in these matters.”