Patricia Fenech, mother of Yorgen Fenech, on Wednesday gave an account of her friendship with blogger Simon Mercieca, testifying in court about her limited interactions with him amidst ongoing accusations against her son.
She said she has met Mercieca and his family for four times.
Yorgen Fenech has been indicted for masterminding the 2017 assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
She was testifying in the libel case Simon Mercieca had filed against blogger Mark Camilleri, who had accused him of having been paid to publish blogs on Fenech.
Patricia Fenech was scheduled to testify at a prior sitting, but due to illness, Simon Mercieca was called to the stand instead. Mercieca had confirmed his communication with Patricia and disclosed two meetings but denied ever receiving payment for his blog posts concerning the Fenech case.
The plaintiff, Mark Camilleri, attended the court session, accompanied by lawyers David Bonello and Joseph Mizzi. Mizzi opened his cross-examination by asking Patricia Fenech about her relationship with Mercieca. Patricia Fenech explained that Mercieca initially reached out via Facebook Messenger, seeking information about Paola for his research, as her grandfather was well-known in the area.
In her testimony, Patricia stated that she met Mercieca around four times. Their first meeting, in 2020, involved a Christmas invitation from Mercieca and his family. On another occasion, Patricia reciprocated by inviting Mercieca's family to her home. They also met briefly for coffee by a pool in St Julian's, where Mercieca covered the bill.
"There was an entire campaign against my son; everything was against him at that time," Patricia recalled, mentioning that she wanted him to write a blog post in his defence.
Besides discussing blog posts, their conversations touched on current affairs, although Patricia noted that Mercieca's busy schedule limited their exchanges. She also clarified that she did not discuss the ongoing libel case with Mercieca, aside from a summons paper she received and did not fully understand until reading about it in an article by Mark Camilleri.
Adding to this, she mentioned that her name "was very popular on Mark Camilleri's website".
Patricia Fenech recounted reading Mercieca's blog regularly, often beginning their conversations by asking about his wife. However, she maintained that she rarely commented on his blog posts about her son, simply telling Mercieca that she had read them.
During cross-examination, Mizzi suggested that Patricia Fenech wanted to get Yorgen's side of the story published, presenting text messages between her and Mercieca. To emphasise his point, he quoted one message from her, saying: "or we go to Saviour. Are we going to remain silent?"
She told the Court she knew Saviour Balzan well, as he used to teach her children.
She concluded her testimony by saying she had not discussed the case with other media outlets and only met Mercieca on the four occasions she previously mentioned.
This is an ongoing case.