The trial by jury of Yorgen Fenech continued on Thursday with former family doctor Adrian Vella recounting the businessman's cocaine addiction, deteriorating mental state, and the events leading up to his arrest, while telling jurors he heard Fenech say: "If I go down, they'll all go down with me."

Vella told jurors that he heard Fenech make the remark on 24 November 2019 after collecting four documents from the home of former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and delivering them to the businessman at Portomaso.

He testified that he "got the fright of his life" as Fenech, who was in what he described as the "whisky room" together with several officers, lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran and another woman he believed may have been a lawyer, took the documents, picked up additional A4 sheets and began writing frantically while repeatedly saying, "It can't be, it can't be", before saying: "If I go down, they'll all go down with me."

Vella had been the Fenech family doctor for 38 years, and was introduced to Keith Schembri by Fenech in 2016, when Schembri was seriously ill with cancer.

The morning session was focused almost solely on a day in Gozo when Theuma was arrested on 15 November 2019.

Vella testified that Fenech had called him and said that he wasn't feeling well, and the doctor said that he suggested that they go up to his house in Gozo to relax.

Vella said that Fenech had been in a poor mental state for months, likely due to his cocaine addiction, and would frequently isolate himself from people.

He said that he urged Fenech to go to Gozo to rest, and then picked him up from Portomaso where he could tell that he was under the influence of cocaine. "He was coked up. After 40 years as a doctor, I could tell," the doctor testified.

On the way up to Gozo, Vella said that Fenech asked Vella to borrow his phone, saying that he had left his at home, and made three calls with it.

Vella said that he does not recall what the calls were about or who he was calling, but says that he was aggressive to the callers. "He sounded angry. He was under the influence and the anger made sense," Vella said.

Yorgen Fenech's brother Franco joined them in Gozo, and at one point Vella said that the duo told him that Yorgen needed a lawyer.

Asked why, the doctor replied: "I don't know. Franco told me he needed one."

Both brothers then used his phone to get in touch with several lawyers, but nobody seemed to want to represent them.  He recalled a lot of shouting and being asked to leave the room a lot, so he decided to go back to Malta.

He told the court that he was offended by the brothers' behaviour, which is why he left.

"They went from zero to a hundred. They weren't in a good state. You can't imagine how someone changes when they're under the influence of cocaine. The best thing I could do was leave," he said.

Around that time, Vella testified, there were reports that three people were being linked to Daphne's murder, and word was circulating that Fenech may have been one of them.

Asked to recall exactly what happened in that Gozo trip, Vella said that it was eight years ago and he had been through a lot. "I helped them, and they tried to drown me," he said.

He testified that he remembers hearing a lot of raised voices. "I started hearing talk about a helicopter and a rocket," he said, adding that the brothers were not in a good state at all.

Becoming emotional, the witness said he has tried to put the episode behind him because it had hurt him and his family.

"It hurt. I did a lot for many people, and they all turned their backs on me," he says as tears roll down his face.

The day after this whole incident, Vella said that he was meant to be picked up by Yorgen's brother Franco, but he never was.  The next thing he heard about them was Yorgen getting arrested three days later, he said.

Vella said that when Fenech was arrested, they still had the keys to his house in Gozo. "The driver eventually returned them to me, and until then I could not even go back to Gozo."

The prosecution moved the timeline to a week later: 24 November 2019.

Vella said that Keith Schembri invited him for a whiskey that evening, but he turned him down as he was busy.  He then got a call from Yorgen Fenech, who told him to 'go and collect something from Keith.'

"I went to Keith Schembri's house. He finally came, he stopped mid stair way and told me, 'Take those' and pointed to some documents on the table. I picked up four documents. There were several papers there, but these four had been set aside separately," Vella testified.

This differs from Schembri's testimony earlier in the jury trial: he denied passing on the documents and said that he would sue Vella for libel 'because he is lying.'

The doctor recalls police knocking on his door at 11:30pm two days after the Portomaso incident, and telling himself that they had gone to him because of the papers.

He said that he called Keith Schembri to tell him that the police were there, and Schembri told him to let them in.

Recalling what happened after he was taken to the police depot, the witness became emotional and wiped away tears. "They locked me inside a cage," he said, adding that he was left there for hours before being taken upstairs.

Vella says he was questioned by investigators and then was allowed to return home.

Prosecutor Godwin Cini refers to the witness' police statement, where Vella had said that Keith Schembri had told him that Melvin Theuma had been arrested, and asked whether he went to see Fenech - after learning of this news - off his own volition.

"I'm trying to forget this whole episode. I have PTSD," Vella replied.  He also said that he did not know Melvin Theuma.

Vella was fuzzy on his recollection of what he had told police: prosecutors said that he had told investigators that Yorgen had said 'I'm going to empty out some things' - but he could not recall it now.

Asked who Fenech had called on the way up to Gozo, Vella said it might have been Keith Schembri.

"In your statement, you said you overheard Yorgen telling Keith: "I'm going to Gozo. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know if I'm going to run. What do I do, I escape, or no?," Cini asked the witness.

"You had said Keith told Yorgen not to run: 'Go to Gozo and don't do anything silly, relax, we speak later. Don't act like my cousin,' the prosecutor continued.

Vella, however, said he does not remember saying anything of the sort to the police.

Schembri's cousin referred to in this statement is More Supermarket's Ryan Schembri, who had faced mounting debts and fled the country for some years, before being arrested in Scotland and brought back to Malta.

Vella also could not recall his statements back in 2019 that Fenech had given him multiple instructions so that he could remain as hidden from prying eyes as possible.

Likewise, he found it difficult recalling statements he had made about Fenech and his brother planning to escape the country - even via private jet to Mexico.

In the afternoon, prosecutors continued to question Vella, repeatedly confronting him with statements he gave police in November 2019 after Yorgen Fenech's arrest.

Much of the afternoon centred on discrepancies between Vella's evidence in court and what he had told investigators almost seven years ago, with the witness frequently replying that he could no longer remember details because he had tried to put the episode behind him.

Vella repeatedly insisted that although he had known both Yorgen Fenech and Keith Schembri well, he had never discussed Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination with either of them.

"I only wanted to help him," Vella told jurors, referring to Fenech's cocaine addiction and deteriorating mental state in the days before his arrest.

Asked directly whether the murder had ever featured in their conversations, the witness replied: "Never, ever, ever."

Prosecutor Cini then played jurors the video and audio recording of Vella's police interrogation from November 2019.

In the recording, investigators questioned the doctor about the events of 24 November, when he collected four documents from Schembri's residence before taking them to Fenech at Portomaso.

The court then heard Vella telling investigators that he had also heard Fenech say: "If I go down, he'll go down with me."

Questioned again in court about the remark, Vella confirmed that Fenech had said "something along those lines", but insisted he never interpreted the statement as meaning Keith Schembri had been involved in Caruana Galizia's murder.

Instead, he said he believed Fenech expected Schembri to help him "get out of the situation he was in."

Judge Edwina Grima reminded jurors that the questions put to Vella during his police interrogation, and his replies, did not in themselves constitute evidence.

Prosecutors also confronted Vella over statements in which he allegedly told investigators that Fenech had spoken about leaving Malta following Melvin Theuma's arrest.

The witness acknowledged that destinations such as Mexico, Dubai and France had been mentioned at the time, but described much of the conversation as "fantasy" and said he could no longer distinguish what had actually happened from what had merely been discussed.

Vella also struggled to recall telling police that he had contacted tuna operator Charles Azzopardi, known as "Il-Poodle", about obtaining a boat, eventually saying he had "probably never called him".

He likewise said he could not remember telling investigators that Fenech had spoken about escaping Malta or asking Keith Schembri whether he should flee the country.

The defence then began its cross-examination, focusing heavily on the inconsistencies between Vella's police statements and his testimony before the jury.

Lawyer Giannella de Marco questioned the witness about the sequence of events leading to the trip to Gozo, whether Keith Schembri had suggested taking Fenech there to rest, and who had initiated various telephone calls made on the day Melvin Theuma was arrested.

Vella repeatedly replied that certain events "could have happened" as suggested but that, after almost seven years, he could no longer be certain.

Asked whether he believed Fenech posed a risk to himself, Vella replied that he did not.

The defence also questioned him about earlier evidence concerning references to rockets, helicopters and escape plans, with Vella agreeing that many of those remarks had come from Franco Fenech rather than Yorgen.

He nevertheless stood by his account of collecting four documents from Schembri's residence and delivering them to Portomaso, where he said Fenech immediately took possession of them and began writing notes.

Towards the end of proceedings, the witness again became visibly emotional, telling the court that he would rather remain under court supervision overnight than return home.

"I prefer staying here. I don't want those at home to see me like this," he said. The trial continues on Friday.