A former Europol expert has told a court that it was not unusual for them to only hand in their reports on extracted data, without attaching copies of the data itself.

This after one of Yorgen Fenech's lawyers suggested that the fact that only the reports had been exhibited indicated that the Europol experts who had assisted the magisterial inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia had "not understood" their tasks.

The compilation of evidence against Yorgen Fenech, who stands indicted for allegedly conspiring with others to murder journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, resumed before Magistrate Rachel Montebello on Monday.

Konstantinous Petrou had been one of the Europol experts appointed by Magistrate Anthony Vella to extract data from a cloned copy of Caruana Galizia's phone and other devices. He had completed this task, he said, and submitted his report to Europol's Weapons and Explosives Unit in the Hague.

"When we deliver data, we also deliver the report, but in some cases, we only deliver the report," Petrou replied, when pressed by defence lawyer Charles Mercieca as to why the data had not been exhibited, too.  

Testifying in English, Petrou matter-of-factly replied that he had handled the task in question the same way that he would handle any other. "Nothing special," he added.

When Mercieca asked whether the witness was aware that his manager had also been appointed as a court expert, Petrou replied that he was not.

The court-expert told the court that he had not examined the contents of the data extracted, explaining that the forensic process he was involved in dealt with verifying that the extracted data had not been corrupted. Data analysis was a job carried out by data analysts, he added.

Asked by Mercieca as to whether he had ever communicated with the magistrate leading the inquiry, the witness said that he hadn't.

Petrou confirmed that he had handed in his report to the Weapons and Explosives department at Europol. "We do this every day, so I was informing my manager of every task that I completed... my manager allocates tasks to me and I do them. If there is a delay, I would inform him."

The court was told that the report about the analysis carried out on the extracted data had already been exhibited by his colleague Martin Van Der Meij.

After the Europol expert left the stand, retired AFM commander, Brigadier Jeffrey Curmi, who had also been appointed as an expert during the inquiry, exhibited his report on the explosive device used in the murder.

The sitting came a week after one of Fenech's lawyers told the court that correspondence between the Italian and Maltese authorities had indirectly referred to a smartwatch-recording of a conversation involving two Maltese persons, in which one says that he had paid around €40,000 to murder the journalist.

Prosecutors had rebutted that claim, telling the court that they had received the document through Eurojust and had exhibited it in the acts of the inquiry. The defence claimed to have been made aware of the recording after the time window for submitting pleas and adding witnesses had lapsed.

Attorney General lawyers Anthony Vella and Godwin Cini are prosecuting.

Lawyers Charles Mercieca, Gianluca Caruana Curran and Marion Camilleri are assisting Fenech.

Lawyers Therese Comodini Cachia and Jason Azzopardi are assisting the Caruana Galizia family as parte civile.