New evidence which may link third parties to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia is being investigated by the police, a court heard on Thursday.

Police superintendent Keith Arnaud told a court that last month the police had obtained new information in the form of four DVDs which may connect others to the 2017 murder of the journalist.

Arnaud was testifying in a constitutional case in which Yorgen Fenech – the man charged with masterminding Caruana Galizia’s murder in a car bomb – is claiming that the police had failed to grant him full disclosure of the evidence against him at the time of his arrest.

Much of his testimony centred around police investigations into Melvin Theuma and Mario Degiorgio, with Arnaud saying that the latter’s house was under surveillance as Theuma used to visit there a lot.

However, he said, that surveillance did not throw up any significant information. “All we would see is Melvin going to Degiorgio bringing either food or money,” Arnaud said.

Questions were also asked about data obtained from Fenech’s phone in 2019, with his defence lawyer suggesting that the police already had a copy of the businessman’s phone as part of the investigation into the murder – a suggestion which was denied by Arnaud.

“What happened is that we had Europol appointed as experts in the inquiry and we had immediately requested they pass us any useful information they had extracted so far…once they had access to the devices, they quickly passed on to us what they could, partial extractions. The rest they took back to The Hague to carry out full extractions on and then passed them on to us.”

The court ultimately ordered Arnaud to exhibit a list of those spoken to by police in connection with the case animo ritirandi (temporarily before being returned), in a sealed list, accessible only to the court and the lawyers of the parties.

The superintendent said he would follow the court’s orders, but stressed that the police had already exhibited all the evidence which was relevant to the investigation. “Those persons who were checked on in the first days absolutely did not feature anywhere else in the investigation.”

It was in the final question that Arnaud was asked whether any material had been connected by investigators relating to third parties which may have been linked to the murder.

In this sense, Arnaud said that last month police obtained four DVDs of fresh information – information which is still being investigated.

The case will now continue in July.