Prosecutor Anthony Vella told the jury that the evidence against Yorgen Fenech forms a chain leading directly to him as the person who ordered Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination, arguing that his financial interests, his relationship with middleman Melvin Theuma, his efforts to conceal evidence and his conduct before his arrest all contradict his claim of innocence.

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.

Delivering the prosecution's final submissions to the jury on Friday, Vella said the prosecution did not have to prove a motive for murder, but argued that the evidence nevertheless demonstrated a powerful financial and personal motive.

At the centre of that motive, he said, was the €500 million Electrogas project and Fenech's secret company, 17 Black.

The prosecutor referred to an email Fenech had written to his wife in which he described the Electrogas project as a massive mistake and acknowledged that its failure could have destroyed his reputation, respect and credibility. Fenech also described 17 Black as a huge source of stress and said he was petrified of the consequences it could have in the media.

Vella argued that these private words were particularly significant because they were written at a time when Fenech did not expect them to become evidence.

The prosecution also highlighted the February 2017 blog post in which Daphne Caruana Galizia publicly linked Fenech to 17 Black. Vella said Fenech's reaction was immediate: within days, 17 Black was renamed Wings Development Limited.

He argued that this demonstrated that Fenech was far from indifferent to Caruana Galizia's reporting, despite his claims in court.

Vella pointed to further evidence concerning Electrogas, saying leaked internal emails showed Fenech as the principal link between the consortium and government and revealed multimillion-euro bonuses he stood to receive when contractual milestones were reached.

The prosecution's case, Vella said, was strengthened by the evidence of Melvin Theuma, whom Fenech is alleged to have instructed to organise the assassination.

Vella stressed that Theuma's account was not standing alone. He pointed to the testimony of convicted hitman Vince Muscat, as well as mobile localisation data and other technical evidence.

According to the prosecution, an FBI report traced the movements of devices associated with the murder plot. The GSM module used in the bomb was activated in Żebbuġ in January 2017, while burner phones appeared repeatedly in the Bidnija area between August and October.

Vella said this chronology fitted Theuma's testimony that Fenech had initially instructed him to hire the Degiorgio brothers before the 2017 election, suspended the plan when a snap election was called, and then reactivated it after the June election.

Theuma testified that Fenech gave him €150,000 for the murder. The prosecutor also referred to the technical evidence concerning the bomb, saying its GSM module showed that it remained beneath Caruana Galizia's car from the night of October 15 until the device was detonated on October 16.

Vella argued that the physical and technical evidence therefore provided important corroboration for Theuma's version of events.

He then turned to the money Fenech had given Theuma.

Theuma had told Fenech that his share of the cost was €120,000. According to Vella, Fenech did not respond by asking why Theuma was discussing the cost of a murder with him. Instead, he said he would get back to him.

When Theuma told Fenech he had paid the €30,000 deposit, Fenech gave him €50,000. Vella also referred to Fenech's admission that he had eventually given Theuma hundreds of thousands of euros. The prosecutor argued that this made no sense if Fenech was the innocent victim he portrayed himself as being.

He similarly rejected Fenech's claim that Theuma had independently decided to spend €30,000 on an assassination without any personal motive or assurance that he would recover the money.

"If Fenech believed Theuma was responsible for a murder," Vella argued, he could have cut ties with him, confronted him or reported him to police. Instead, their financial relationship continued.

Vella also attacked Fenech's handling of the alleged recordings held by Theuma.

Fenech claimed that Theuma had given him a pen drive in October 2018 containing recordings in which Fenech himself discussed the murder. Yet, according to his evidence, Fenech never listened to the recordings and instead handed them to Keith Schembri, whom he now accuses of being the real mastermind.

Vella described that account as fundamentally implausible.

He also questioned why Fenech, if he genuinely believed Theuma was secretly recording him and attempting to implicate him, had not recorded Theuma himself or confronted him directly.

Instead, the prosecution said, Fenech wiped data from his mobile phone, leaving investigators with records dating from January 2019. Vella also referred to a Signal message in which Fenech allegedly instructed Theuma to make sure that everything was "one hundred percent clean".

The prosecutor argued that these were not the actions of a man trying to establish his innocence, but of someone attempting to destroy evidence.

The alleged leaks from the murder investigation were another important part of Vella's address.

Vella rejected Fenech's portrayal of himself as powerless, emphasising instead the defendant's considerable wealth and network of contacts.

He referred to Fenech's access to ministers, chief executives, chairmen and senior officials, as well as evidence that he had obtained assistance from Keith Schembri and maintained contacts within the police and other institutions.

The prosecution also relied heavily on Fenech's conduct in November 2019.

Vella presented WhatsApp messages in which Fenech and his uncle Ray discussed leaving Malta, flights to Paris, accommodation in France and transport arrangements. Fenech also asked about a private flight to Nice and contacted a representative of LunaJets, saying he could leave within 30 minutes.

Ray advised him to "gain time" and to be careful with cash and credit cards, while Fenech warned that being caught could mean ending up in Europol's hands.

Vella asked the jury to reconcile those messages with Fenech's claim that he was simply taking his yacht, the Gio, out for routine maintenance.

The prosecutor also returned to Fenech's accusations against Schembri.

Vella argued that Fenech's own messages immediately before his arrest did not support his claim that Schembri had masterminded the assassination. Instead, they showed Fenech asking whether he should leave and Schembri replying, "One or the other."

Schembri himself had testified that he understood Fenech to be preparing to leave Malta.

Vella questioned why Fenech, if Schembri had really framed him and was the person behind the murder, had not confronted him directly or accused him in those panic-stricken messages.

He argued that the absence of such an accusation was significant.

The prosecution also challenged Fenech's claims about meetings with former prime minister Joseph Muscat, pointing to telephone and localisation data which, Vella said, contradicted the alleged meetings in January 2019. Messages exchanged between the two men were also presented as inconsistent with Fenech's account.

Vella also highlighted to Fenech's attitude towards the victim.

He referred to secret recordings in which Fenech expressed extreme hatred towards Caruana Galizia, including a statement that he would have no remorse about throwing her from a balcony.

Vella argued that those recordings could not be explained away by Fenech's later claim that he had been affected by drug use.

The prosecutor told the jury that the evidence should be considered as a whole: the financial motive, the 17 Black revelations, Fenech's dealings with Theuma, the payments, the technical evidence, the alleged leaks, attempts to destroy evidence, the escape preparations and his own recorded words.

Taken together, Vella argued, they did not describe an innocent businessman trapped in someone else's conspiracy.

They pointed instead, he said, to Yorgen Fenech as the person who commissioned the murder.

In the afternoon session, Vella tackled Fenech's claim that he was abroad when, according to Melvin Theuma, the murder was commissioned. Vella argued that the defence had failed to establish Fenech's whereabouts on all the relevant dates, pointing out that the evidence only showed when he flew to the United States and when he subsequently entered Dubai.

Vella then reminded jurors of the dramatic testimony concerning Johann Cremona, who had initially claimed that Fenech's lawyers offered him €400,000 for favourable testimony before later retracting the allegation and saying he had made it up when speaking to Keith Schembri.

The prosecutor went on to explain the legal concepts of mens rea and actus reus, arguing that Fenech demonstrated criminal intent by hiring Theuma and carried out the guilty act by paying him for the assassination. Vella told jurors that an accomplice who orders, instructs or pays for a crime carries the same legal responsibility as those who physically carry it out.

He stressed that the case before the jury was solely about Fenech and that they should not speculate about the possible involvement of others. The ongoing magisterial inquiry, he said, remained available for further investigations.

Vella subsequently explained the law on complicity, arguing that the prosecution did not have to establish every possible form of participation. He said it was enough to prove that Fenech contributed to the common purpose behind the murder through one of the forms of complicity recognised by law.

Turning to criminal association, Vella told the jury that the offence involved an agreement between two or more people to pursue a common criminal objective, together with a shared purpose and plan of action. He argued that these elements had emerged from testimony, recordings and other evidence.

Vella returned to Caruana Galizia herself, telling jurors that beyond the evidence and legal arguments, a person had been brutally killed. He referred to her family and friends and said she never had the opportunity to see her grandchildren.

Vella then made his final appeal, saying the prosecution had a clear conscience that the evidence showed Fenech had committed the crimes. He asked the jury to find him guilty on all charges and told them their responsibility was to deliver justice to both the accused and the victim.

Charles Mercieca then began the defence's counter-submission, immediately attacking the prosecution case as weak. He challenged Theuma's account of an alleged meeting with Fenech before the 2017 election, pointing to evidence that Fenech was abroad and describing the alleged meeting as "science fiction".

Mercieca also questioned the investigation into Keith Schembri and argued that important investigative leads had not been pursued. He told jurors they were effectively being asked to do work investigators had failed to do.

The defence further challenged the circumstances surrounding Theuma's presidential pardon, arguing that he had been promised a pardon before police obtained Fenech's version of events. The prosecution objected, saying the promise was intended to secure Theuma's cooperation.

The sitting ended with tensions between the lawyers and Judge Edwina Grima intervening. After Mercieca told the prosecution to "Sit down and let me make my submissions", the judge reminded him that the court determines how proceedings are conducted. She also warned the defence against relying on English law when explaining legal principles to the jury.

"We are in Malta and Maltese law applies," Grima said.

The judge said she would decide the legal wrangle on Saturday.