An office at Castille which was used seven years ago was viewed on Saturday as part of court-ordered inspections linked to the ongoing Yorgen Fenech murder trial, with the Office of the Prime Minister stressing that the government is "completely extraneous" to the facts being discussed before the court.
The office, which was in use at the Office of the Prime Minister in 2019, has since been occupied by four different chiefs of staff, the government said Saturday. It was among a number of locations mentioned at some stage by witnesses during the trial and which were subsequently identified for access following a request made to Judge Edwina Grima.
The OPM said it had been communicating the development after the court, presided over by Judge Grima, had ordered that no reporting take place until all the court-ordered views and inspections carried out over the past two days had been completed.
It said that, while the Government of Malta was "completely extraneous to the facts that are being discussed in this trial", the OPM said it had had no difficulty providing all the necessary cooperation, including logistical and security arrangements and any other assistance requested.
The access to Castille nevertheless places the Prime Minister's Office once again in the background of a trial that has repeatedly brought events and people connected to the highest levels of government into the courtroom.
Castille has featured prominently in testimony during the proceedings, most notably through evidence given by Keith Schembri, who was Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's chief of staff when investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in October 2017.
Schembri, who served as chief of staff to then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, has been among the most significant figures to testify about the political and administrative environment surrounding the events that preceded and followed Caruana Galizia's assassination. His former position placed him at the centre of the government's operations at Castille during Muscat's premiership.
The trial of Fenech, who is accused of involvement in Caruana Galizia's murder, has repeatedly returned to events, meetings, communications and relationships involving people who operated from or had access to the Prime Minister's Office during that period.
The views form part of the evidentiary process in a trial which has now become one of the longest murder trials in Malta's history.
The court's decision to impose a temporary reporting restriction meant that details of the visits could only be disclosed once all the ordered accesses had been completed. The OPM said it was therefore issuing its statement at this stage.
The reference to Castille is nevertheless significant given the extent to which the building has featured in the wider narrative surrounding the assassination of Caruana Galizia and the subsequent investigations and court proceedings.