In his fourth and final day of court testimony, lead investigator into the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder Keith Arnaud told jurors that Yorgen Fenech seemed to know that the journalist’s laptop had ended up in Germany.
Defence lawyer Giannella De Marco continued her cross-examination of Arnaud on Wednesday morning before the jurors themselves asked the lead investigator questions.
Questioning initially centred on former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, with De Marco asking whether investigators had ever seized his mobile phone following suspicions that confidential information about the investigation had been leaked.
Arnaud confirmed they had not, explaining that he and Inspector Kurt Zahra had requested an investigation into the suspected leaks but deliberately did not conduct it themselves.
"We sought an investigation. We did not investigate it ourselves, for the sake of transparency," he told the court.
The defence then returned to claims involving former minister Chris Cardona, referring to testimony by convicted hitmen alleging Cardona had paid €50,000 in connection with an alleged 2015 plot to assassinate Caruana Galizia.
Arnaud confirmed that Cardona and two of his associates had been questioned, although their mobile phones were not seized. Asked why investigators had not questioned the hitmen again after those allegations emerged, Arnaud described their testimony as "riddled with inaccuracies".
"We investigated every lead, the evidence doesn't indicate that anyone other than those charged was involved in this case," he said.
De Marco also referred to George Degiorgio's claims that Cardona and former police officer-turned-lawyer David Gatt were involved in both the alleged 2015 plot and the 2017 assassination.
Arnaud rejected that version of events, pointing out that Degiorgio himself had confirmed the €150,000 paid to the hitmen related to the 2017 murder.
The defence also questioned Arnaud about requests to extract data from the mobile phones of Caruana Galizia, Yorgen Fenech, Keith Schembri and others.
Arnaud clarified that those requests were made by the inquiring magistrate rather than by police investigators.
Questioning also returned to Caruana Galizia's laptop, with Arnaud telling the court investigators obtained all the information they required through the journalist's son.
"I needed information about the stories Caruana Galizia was working on, and he gave me everything," he said.
De Marco further asked Arnaud whether Schembri had ever acknowledged knowing murder middleman Melvin Theuma.
Arnaud confirmed Schembri never told investigators he knew Theuma, even while discussions were taking place regarding Theuma's presidential pardon. Likewise, he said, Theuma never told investigators that he knew Schembri personally.
He also confirmed Schembri denied sending anyone to reassure Theuma following his arrest.
Before concluding her cross-examination, De Marco questioned Arnaud about messages exchanged between Schembri and Johann Cremona, in which Schembri described Arnaud as someone who had "always been fair".
Asked whether he had ever shown deference towards Schembri because of his position as the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Arnaud rejected the suggestion.
"I've always treated people fairly," he said.
Jury seeks clarification on investigation
Following the end of the defence's cross-examination, prosecutors briefly questioned Arnaud before members of the jury were invited to put their own questions to the lead investigator.
Among the issues raised was one of Melvin Theuma's recordings, in which Yorgen Fenech allegedly claimed that Daphne Caruana Galizia's family had not handed her laptop to investigators but had instead taken it to Germany.
Arnaud confirmed that this was what Fenech had said in the recording.
Jurors also sought clarification on several aspects of the investigation, including Theuma's role in the murder, the photograph of him with Keith Schembri found inside the so-called "ice cream box," the alleged attempt to calm Theuma following his arrest and the handwritten letter allegedly passed to Fenech while in custody.
Arnaud told jurors that Theuma maintained he never received any money for acting as middleman and had instead spent his own money whenever Fenech was abroad.
He also said Theuma kept the photograph with Schembri because he had become convinced that Schembri and Fenech wanted to eliminate him, believing he was the only person capable of exposing them.
The jury also questioned Arnaud about Keith Schembri's mobile phone, asking whether investigators had asked him where he was when the device stopped transmitting shortly before his arrest.
According to Arnaud, Schembri said he had remained at home throughout the night and had not used the phone, while investigators also established that Adrian Vella had contacted him that same night.
Jurors further asked why investigators had not immediately searched Schembri's office at Castille.
Arnaud explained officers had been dealing with several developments simultaneously, including questioning Adrian Vella, before moving to arrest Schembri.
He acknowledged investigators could have searched the office on the same day.
Following questions about disappearing messages and mobile phone geolocation evidence, Judge Edwina Grima reminded jurors that expert witnesses would testify later in the trial on those technical issues.
Arnaud then stepped down from the witness stand, bringing four days of testimony to an end.
Officers recount first moments after explosion
The court then heard from Superintendent Antoine Cilia and Police Constable Malcolm Cefai, who were among the first officers to respond to the car bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia on 16 October 2017.
Cilia described arriving at the scene to find body parts strewn across the area, firefighters battling the flames engulfing the vehicle and a crater left in the road by the explosion.
Jurors were also shown a series of graphic photographs taken by Rapid Intervention Unit officers documenting the immediate aftermath.
Police Constable Cefai recalled that he and another officer attempted to extinguish the burning vehicle using a fire extinguisher but were unable to do so because of the intensity of the flames.
He told the court that Matthew Caruana Galizia arrived at the scene and told officers, "My mum is in the car."
Cefai also recalled Matthew grabbing and smashing a passer-by's mobile phone after seeing him photographing the scene, describing him as being in a state of panic and "not in a good way at all."
Forensic experts testify about crime scene, bomb
The afternoon session focused on the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia and on the crime scene itself.
Dutch expert Marcel van Beest from the Netherlands Forensic Institute was the first to take the witness stand, and he detailed his work at the scene: splitting the crime scene into sectors, bagging and tagging evidence, and photographing the site from the ground and the air.
van Beest says that several body parts were found at the scene which were so severely burnt and damaged that they could not be immediately identified. Caruana Galizia’s body suffered extensive injuries and severe burns as a result of the fire after the explosion.
The explosion itself left a hole in the road which measured around 60 by 65 centimetres, he said.
He testified that investigators determined the substances used in the explosives by taking samples of residue on the car’s seatbelt and from the hole left in the road by the blast.
Samples were taken from zones further away from the crime scene to establish whether there was any contamination caused by the explosion.
The photos shown by the expert were quite graphic: they showed the result of the explosion, including body parts – imagery which was too much for one of Caruana Galizia’s relatives, who exited the courtroom.
Caruana Galizia’s mobile phone was also found at the scene, specifically under the car’s left wheel. It was registered as evidence, passed on to the police, and later transported to the Netherlands Forensic Institute’s offices.
Ultimately, the expert’s conclusion was that the bomb that been placed inside the car, specifically underneath the driver’s seat.
Former AFM Brigadier Jeffrey Curmi – who is also an explosives expert – testified via video call from the Netherlands, where he is currently serving as Malta’s ambassador.
Curmi told the court that he was the court-appointed expert for every bombing since 2005 except for the one in this case, which was at his own request.
Regardless, he had a role in investigations as he was asked to compare this explosion to other ones in order to try and identify similarities.
He found that the explosion was similar to the one in Msida targeting Romeo Bone in 2017 and another one in Gharghur targeting Kevin Ellul in 2018. Curmi says that there were similar metal pieces, measuring around 2.5 centimetres, used in these three bombs.
Lead investigator Keith Arnaud testified earlier in the trial that the bomb used in the Caruana Galizia assassination was like those used in these two cases, and that the SIM cards which detonated all three of these bombs were purchased together.