"All roads lead to Keith."
That was the central message defence lawyer Charles Mercieca sought to leave with jurors on Wednesday as he continued his summation in the trial by jury of Yorgen Fenech, arguing that the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination repeatedly failed to follow evidence which, according to the defence, pointed towards former chief of staff Keith Schembri.
Mercieca told the jury that several strands of evidence heard during the trial ultimately led back to Schembri, despite attempts to push those avenues aside.
Fenech has pleaded not guilty to two principal charges: complicity in the wilful homicide of Daphne Caruana Galizia and criminal association to commit the murder.
Caruana Galizia, a columnist with The Malta Independent, was killed in a car bomb on 16 October 2017.
In his address to the jurors, Mercieca described the police investigation as "shoddy" and "dirty", asking them how they could regard it as fair when, according to the defence, potentially important evidence was not collected or presented.
The lawyer pointed to the mobile phone belonging to Schembri, arguing that it had never been seized. He recalled that Schembri was seen holding his phone at Castille just a week after a search had been conducted at his residence.
Mercieca questioned how investigators could have conducted a proper investigation while leaving what he described as potentially crucial evidence untouched.
He also referred to alleged recordings Melvin Theuma had of Schembri, which were never produced in court, as well as call profiles which the defence says could have independently tested important parts of Theuma's account.
The lawyer said investigators had failed to produce call records relating to calls Theuma claimed had taken place, including calls involving Fenech and Alfred Degiorgio. The defence argued that such records could have provided objective evidence capable of either supporting or disproving Theuma's version.
The defence's attack on the investigation formed part of a broader argument that the prosecution had concentrated on Fenech while failing to adequately investigate other figures whose names emerged during the inquiry.
Mercieca questioned why, if investigators had received allegations directly implicating Schembri and former minister Chris Cardona, those allegations had not resulted in a fuller investigation.
The lawyer also returned repeatedly to Melvin Theuma, the prosecution's key witness against Fenech.
Mercieca argued that Theuma knew more than he disclosed and suggested that, at certain points, he had mixed up Schembri and Fenech.
The defence has sought to undermine Theuma's credibility by highlighting what it considers inconsistencies in his testimony, as well as his presidential pardon.
Mercieca argued that the pardon should have left Theuma with no reason to fear revealing the truth. Yet, he said, Theuma still appeared to conceal or distort information.
Mercieca also argued that the pardon amounted to a favour and suggested that it carried an "unwritten condition" that Theuma should not implicate Schembri. He pointed to the fact that the pardon remained in force even after Degiorgio later challenged Theuma's version of events.
The defence also challenged the prosecution's alleged motive for the assassination.
Mercieca argued that the prosecution had not proved that Fenech wanted Caruana Galizia killed because of what she was about to publish concerning Electrogas.
He described that theory as "conjecture and speculation", questioning why the prosecution had focused so heavily on Electrogas when Caruana Galizia had written about numerous other subjects and people, including Schembri.
Mercieca questioned where the allegedly damaging story was and why the journalist's laptop had not been produced as evidence.
He reminded jurors that investigators had initially regarded the laptop as important evidence capable of shedding light on the motive, before its importance was later played down because her published material remained available online.
The defence also highlighted the fact that forensic evidence indicated the bomb used to assassinate Caruana Galizia was already in Malta in January 2017, before the date on which Theuma claimed he received the murder order from Fenech.
The defence lawyer's summation sought to connect two arguments: that the prosecution had failed to establish a sufficiently reliable case against Fenech, and that the investigation itself had left important questions unanswered.
"If investigators had opportunities to pursue a line of inquiry that could have led to Keith," Mercieca argued, "they burned the bridges leading to Keith."
Mercieca ultimately asked the jury to acquit if it remained unconvinced that Fenech was the person who conspired with Theuma and others to assassinate Caruana Galizia.
Mercieca began the afternoon by challenging Theuma's account of his visits to Castille, questioning the suggestion that his meetings with Schembri were brief and uneventful.
Referring to the site inspection of Castille's central staircase, Mercieca recalled Theuma's account of meeting Schembri there and remarked ironically that even he was impressed by the staircase.
But the defence lawyer's argument was that the meeting could not have been as insignificant as Theuma had suggested. Theuma was subsequently taken into another room and given instructions to go to a ministry, Mercieca noted, arguing that this was inconsistent with the idea of a five-minute encounter.
The following day, Theuma returned to Castille and said he spent around two and a half hours there.
"I'm telling you, not even a head of state spends two and a half hours at Castille," Mercieca told the jurors.
He then broadened the argument, saying that Schembri had repeatedly used people around him for particular purposes before discarding or sidelining them.
According to Mercieca, the events examined throughout the trial had gradually revealed a pattern, with Schembri allegedly operating through other people rather than directly.
"That hidden hand has now been exposed," he told the jury.
Mercieca then returned to Theuma's presidential pardon. He argued that the pardon should not be regarded simply as a favour, but as a "special favour" which protected Theuma from prosecution for matters covered by it.
The defence did not argue that the pardon system itself was improper, Mercieca said, but questioned why it had been necessary in Theuma's case. Police could have obtained the recordings in Theuma's possession and proceeded against him through the ordinary legal process, he argued.
He questioned the alleged involvement of Schembri in the process leading to the pardon, asking: "Why did Keith Schembri rush with the pardon to Joseph Muscat?"
Mercieca also reminded jurors that a presidential pardon has consequences and is recorded on a person's criminal conduct record, stressing the exceptional nature of the decision.
The defence then turned to the search at Schembri's residence and the handling of electronic devices.
Scene of Crime officers had gone to the residence to collect devices considered potentially relevant to the investigation. Mercieca said the officers had testified that they were instructed to seize only devices specifically pointed out by Schembri.
These included a Dell laptop, two MacBook Air computers belonging to his children and an Asus tablet. Officers also observed two other mobile phones at the residence, but did not seize them because they had not been indicated to them.
Schembri was present during the search, accompanied by lawyers and family members.
Mercieca questioned this approach, particularly when viewed against the importance of electronic evidence in the case. He also returned to Schembri's missing mobile phone, highlighting what the defence described as contradictory explanations about its disappearance.
Schembri had initially said the phone was broken and later said that it had been taken by a Syrian worker carrying out work at his home.
Mercieca told jurors that Schembri effectively expected them to believe that "some Syrian person" was walking around with his phone. He also recalled Schembri joking that even his friends did not believe his explanation.
The defence argued that the circumstances surrounding the missing phone raised questions about Schembri's credibility and whether investigators had done enough to recover a device which could potentially have contained important evidence.
Mercieca contrasted the handling of the phone with the seizure of a laptop belonging to Schembri's daughter, whom he said had no connection to the case.
He also referred to a photograph showing a mobile phone on a table inside Schembri's residence, recalling Arnaud's evidence that he had not considered anything there to be of importance.
"That is not good enough," Mercieca argued. Even if the phone belonged to a relative, he said, investigators should have seized and examined it before reaching a conclusion about its relevance.
The defence lawyer then returned to the Castille search, referring to evidence given by Inspector Kurt Zahra. Schembri, then chief of staff, had reportedly assured investigators that nobody had entered the room.
Mercieca, however, pointed to footage which he said showed Schembri unlocking the room himself before putting the keys in his pocket. Zahra had also testified that he entered the room before Schembri.
Mercieca also challenged Schembri's account that his mobile phone had disappeared shortly before his arrest.
"If he can lie about something like that, imagine what he can lie about when it comes to involvement in a murder," he told jurors.
The defence then returned to Theuma's recordings, arguing that they should not be regarded as a complete or neutral account of events.
Mercieca said Theuma himself had decided which recordings to retain, with those eventually placed in an ice-cream box and handed to police. He also recalled evidence that, shortly before his arrest, Theuma had admitted deleting a number of recordings after returning from Attard, where he was believed to have visited Edgar Brincat, known as il-Ġojja.
The defence therefore argued that the recordings heard in court had already been filtered by Theuma before reaching investigators.
Mercieca next focused on Theuma's links with former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar. He reminded jurors of evidence that members of Theuma's family had the commissioner's phone number, as well as the photograph showing Theuma with Schembri at Castille.
He recalled the efforts by Theuma and his stepdaughter to locate the photograph after believing it had been lost, arguing that it was regarded as something that could be used to "scare them".
Mercieca said Theuma had similarly used his recordings and the letter in which he first implicated Fenech as tools to exert pressure on others.
Mercieca then referred to Johann Cremona's allegation that the defence had attempted to buy him. According to the defence, after two days of testimony Cremona suddenly produced a note or screenshot which he said related to alleged contact between the defence and Schembri before his evidence.
Mercieca argued that the material was not incidental but had been kept in reserve and produced at what was considered the "opportune moment".
He also pointed to what the defence regarded as a significant contrast in Cremona's testimony: while Cremona gave extensive evidence against Fenech, Mercieca said, he did not speak in the same manner about Schembri.
The lawyer then went back to 2018 and the episode involving Kenneth Camilleri and Theuma. According to the defence's interpretation, Schembri was the person who brought Cremona into the chain of events, with Cremona involved in the effort to have Camilleri approach Theuma and calm him down.
Mercieca framed the question for the jury as one of influence and control.
"Who used Cremona in all this? Who instructed Kenneth Camilleri? Who is the hidden hand behind everything?" he asked.
He then gave the defence's answer.
"Once you start seeing the full picture, you realise Keith Schembri is behind it all."
The trial continues Thursday.