Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Wednesday that he is “baffled” by the verdict reached by jurors in the trial of Yorgen Fenech, as he addressed the media in a press conference a week after the businessman walked free of charges in connection with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
This was the first time that Muscat spoke out on the case. He had been slated as a potential witness to be summoned during the trial, but ultimately was never called onto the witness stand.
Instead, he brought journalists together for a two-hour press conference on Wednesday where he gave an hour-long statement and then answered a myriad of questions from journalists.
“Today I am going to exercise my right to freedom of speech, as others have and continue to do so to say what they think about me, my leadership, the past, the present, and the future, and so I don’t think there should be a problem for me to speak today and set the record straight,” Muscat said as he began his statement.
He said that the jury verdict is one which will “mark the country” in the past, present, and future.
Muscat said that the first point is that one must respect the course of justice and the decision, but that does not mean that this decision cannot be scrutinised.
“You will ask what I think: I was baffled by this verdict. Baffled by the verdict, but also baffled with what happened after the verdict,” he said.
Muscat said that he was baffled because the case that was presented to the jury had been presented to him in its infancy and he therefore shouldered responsibility to recommend a Presidential Pardon for Melvin Theuma. “If the case was so strong back then, let alone nine years later with all the details that came out,” he said.
“But society has its rules: rule of law – but it seems that some repeat this phrase but do not know what it means. The rules cannot apply when we like the result, but then not count when we don’t like the result. The rules are the rules,” he said.
“Perhaps one of the inconvenient truths is that politicians and media do not reflect the society as reflected by this jury. I think even those who think they represent civil society need to do some soul searching – I think there is a civil society beyond the organised civil society,” he continued.
Despite saying that he was baffled by the verdict, though, Muscat defended the jury system and the jurors themselves – even going so far as to remark that he was surprised that nobody had stood up for the jurors.
“I am sorry that nobody defended the jurors, for instance,” Muscat said. “Everyone made them out to be as nine people who are either incompetent or that they were bought. That is the perception being fomented out there,” he said. “Including by the Archbishop,” he added.
Muscat noted that the public inquiry – which he described as “the North Star of everything” – had made no recommendations pertaining to trails by jury, and that even in a report by former European Court of Human Rights Judge Giovanni Bonello that he had commissioned, the only recommendation for juries – which was implemented – was that in the case of white collar crimes, a technical person can be appointed to assist jurors.
But turning to the jurors in this trial themselves, Muscat said that “as soon as they said something that people didn’t like, they became the worst of the worst of society.” “That’s not acceptable,” he said.
He said that there is even potentially an effect on a possible retrial. “You tell me how the nine people who are chosen for this new jury would enter that courtroom,” he said.
“We are sleepwalking; we are not realising that all this noise is undermining the institutions of justice,” he said.
Muscat then said that there are already members of the judiciary who are “afraid of the media” and who do not decide based on what they actually believe in, but decide based on how they think they may be perceived in the media.
“The Chamber of Advocates, the Chamber of the Judiciary can come out and condemn me… the people know that what I am saying is the truth,” he said.
Muscat says he made a mistake to allow public inquiry to be appointed before jury trial
Muscat dedicated a portion of his statement to the Public Inquiry that was appointed to look into whether there was any connection between the State and the murder of Caruana Galizia.
This inquiry was established by Muscat himself in September 2019 and concluded its work in July 2021. The inquiry, which included one sitting judge and two former judges had found that the State was responsible for creating a culture of impunity that made Caruana Galizia’s murder possible, and had also made several recommendations for reforms.
Muscat said that he “respects and accepts every conclusion” that the inquiry reached. That, however, does not stop him from speaking about the context of it, he pointed out.
“It was my mistake to relent with regards to the timing. It was premature,” he said. He added that there was this idea at the time that if the inquiry was to be delayed until after the jury trial, there was a risk that it would never happen, depending on what would have come up during the trial.
“I regret it,” he said of his decision to appoint the inquiry when he did.
Muscat added that the situation now is such that the conclusion drawn by the public inquiry is “totally contrary” to the one reached by jurors.
Muscat said that the public inquiry had inferred that Caruana Galizia was killed due to her reporting on the Electrogas project, but the jury’s verdict infers that they do not feel that that is a credible theory.
“We have two institutions which are schizophrenic – they have two totally different lines of thinking,” he said.
Muscat then zeroed in on one of the three people who made up the public inquiry: former Chief Justice Joseph Said Pullicino. Said Pullicino was one of three members of the inquiry, together with former Judge Michael Mallia, who chaired the inquiry, and sitting judge Abigail Lofaro.
Muscat said that there had been disagreements between him and the Caruana Galizia on who would be on the inquiry: he said that he had wanted Anthony Abela Medici and then Ian Refalo – neither of whom were accepted as viable options by the family.
The next suggestion was former Chief Justice and European Court of Human Rights judge Vincent De Gaetano, who Muscat said had initially accepted the offer but then declined it.
The choice, Muscat said, then fell onto Said Pullicino, whom he said the family had heavily insisted upon. “Yes, I am going to criticise Joseph Said Pullicino,” Muscat said as he launched into his views on the matter.
He said that Said Pullicino was a legal partner of Guido de Marco, then was handpicked by de Marco to be Chief Justice, then he ended up chairman of the Broadcasting Authority and as the Ombudsman, and he “is not someone well known for the beautiful way of how he speaks about the Labour Party, but I accepted him.”
Muscat said that he did this because the terms of reference of the inquiry were clear – they were to establish whether there was a conspiracy within the State for Daphne Caruana Galizia to be killed – and because he thought that Said Pullicino would be balanced out by the other two judges on the inquiry.
Mallia and Lofaro however were “totally weak” in all of this, Muscat said. “The inquiry was written by one person and the two other judges were weak and they cowed out to the system,” Muscat said.
Expanding the terms of reference to include State impunity is something that Muscat said he accepts, but he also noted that the actual answer to the question put to the inquiry was just put in as a single sentence, which said that there was no conclusion that could be reached that the State was involved in the carrying out of the murder.
“We need soul searching,” Muscat said, and this is when the public inquiry should have been done, in order to aid that.
Muscat denies gun going off near his wife, says relationships between businesses and politicians is normal but must be governed well
Muscat then turned to points which emerged during the jury.
First he said that he was “very hurt” by situations – such as testimony involved lawyer David Gatt allegedly being found naked in Castille – that ridiculed the work that people inside Castille and the government do. “Castille is not a brothel and never was,” he said.
With regards to relationships between politicians and the business community, Muscat said that anyone who does not think that it is normal for that relationship to exist and for it to be magnified further by the fact that Malta is so small is not telling themselves the truth.
“The question is how to govern those relationships,” he said. He said that there were points in the jury where those relationships were abused, but there were others where the relationships were normal.
On the “narrative” that the Labour government somehow favoured the Fenech family, Muscat said that he has every respect for the family and the work it had done and money invested over the years.
On the closeness that existed, Muscat pointed out that when PN leader Eddie Fenech Adami realised that he had a missing vote to topple the Sant government because one of his MPs, John Dalli, was in Tunisia, he had phoned up George Fenech to pick him up with his private jet.
“And he did it. Did he do anything wrong? No, he did what he had to do,” he said.
He said that there were other “totally incorrect” points, such as testimony – by Keith Schembri – that the gun of one of his security guards, Kenneth Camilleri, had gone off in the vicinity of his wife. Muscat said that Camilleri had, however, been told to stop entering Castille with a holstered firearm.
Muscat also denied ever having a Mario Fava as his consultant, as a document presented in court alleged.
Muscat says that he initially assumed that murder was commissioned by someone foreign
Speaking on the chronology of the case from his perspective, Muscat first addressed a report that he had felt unwell and fainted in the week prior to Caruana Galizia’s murder.
Speculation had later abounded that Muscat fainted because he had been tipped off that Caruana Galizia was to be murdered. In actual fact, Muscat said, he had changed to a new diet but maintained the same blood pressure medication does as beforehand and felt unwell due to a calorie deficit.
Muscat said that from the moment he was informed about the murder, he immediately treated it as if it were a “terrorist attack.” “It was not just a murder, but the equivalent of a terrorist attack with repercussions in every direction,” he said.
He admitted that that the time, he thought that the murder had to have been commissioned by someone foreign.
Muscat said that he had instructed Keith Schembri to contact the US Embassy Charges d’Affairies Mark Shapiro to enlist the assistance of the FBI, and noted here he was hurt by a police official was “playing a political game” in saying that he had been the one to actually bring the FBI in.
The almost unique technology used by the FBI is what cracked the case, Muscat said.
In the interim, then European Affairs Minister Helena Dalli was in Luxembourg and was immediately told to enlist the assistance of the Dutch government for forensic experts. “ It is a total invention that the Dutch Embassy approached us,” he said.
Briefings which he received from the police, Muscat said, were all at the behest of the police themselves. “The police decided what to say and what not to say,” he said. He also said that Keith Schembri never asked or was asked to attend any such briefing, although he may have been present for a couple.
Schembri, Muscat said, also gave the impression – “and I cannot understand why, to be honest” – that he and then Justice Minister Owen Bonnici were defending Fenech. “He was never present and we never even asked these questions,” Muscat said.
He also said that he was never given any arrest dates or search dates, and he also said that there were no circumstances where Melvin Theuma ever mentioned Schembri over the phone – jurors heard that Muscat had allegedly told Schembri that Theuma was mentioning him a lot over the phone.
With regards to the potato shed raid, Muscat said that neither he nor Schembri knew the exact date of when it was to take place, but he felt “betrayed” when he was told that it was evident that the suspects knew that police were coming. “One of them even had a lawyer’s number written in biro on his hand,” he said.
He also said that it was “intolerable” that Europol report that not even he had seen somehow ended up in the hands of the accused, but noted that there were also plenty of other leaks – and “it is clear who was leaking them,” Muscat said – that ended up in the hands of the media which “undermined the case.”
With regards to Kenneth Camilleri’s request for meeting with Muscat – as Camilleri testified in court, Muscat said that he had information that Camilleri may have been about to speak to him about the case and about bail for the accused hitmen.
“When I asked him whether he wanted to speak to me about work and he told me ‘no’, I told him that I didn’t want to know and I told him to leave the room,” Muscat said.
Muscat again denied that two meetings that Fenech said he had with the Prime Minister had happened: Fenech’s own text messages disprove that he had met Muscat at Girgenti, and a geolocation showed Fenech in Valletta on 14 January 2019 and text exchanges show that Muscat texted Fenech the day after to ask him if he had returned to Malta – a text which Muscat said would have made little sense if he had just met Fenech the day before.
‘I had concrete information of heavy lobbying campaign for Melvin Theuma not to be granted’
Turning to the pardon granted to Melvin Theuma, Muscat said that as soon as Theuma was arrested, the Police Commissioner called him and said that the only way this case would be solved was with a pardon.
He said that he was sceptical of pardons as they have a very poor track record in major cases. The Commissioner and Attorney General went over to convince him about the pardon, and the Caruana Galizia family also said that it would not object if the pardon is granted.
Muscat said that he then went to Cabinet and informed them of the advice that he had received and asked for permission to proceed by himself.
“Why? I had concrete information that there was going to be a heavy campaign of lobbying for the pardon not to be granted,” he said.
“I did not want to entertain a scenario where a pardon which is supported by the family is blocked. You can imagine what the political and international repercussions would have been. I wanted to protect my colleagues and not come into a situation where we paint ourselves into a corner,” he said.
On the pardon request filed by Fenech, Muscat said that he had left the room while Cabinet discussed it, and noted that Schembri was under arrest at the time so could not have influenced it. “It was a Cabinet decision to not grant that pardon,” Muscat said, as he noted that then Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech had at the time suggested that he would have considered such a pardon request.
‘Someone wanted to take my place as soon as possible,’ Muscat says on his resignation
Muscat’s resignation came soon after.
He said that within the context of heavy and continuous protests, he had requests from the police to intervene to restore public order and he said that he refused those requests.
“I resigned not because my work was done: I had a lot more things that I could have done and wanted to do. But firstly, I did not want even the tiniest of impressions that I could have influenced the investigation and process of this case since my chief of staff had been mentioned,” he said.
“But there were also others who wanted to take my place as soon as possible – I’m not referring to Robert Abela, Chris Fearne, or Ian Borg – but to someone who tried to manoeuvre from behind the scenes, but ultimately did not manage. He however had dragged the President of the Republic into this, who had asked me not to do any public manifestations to announce my resignation,” he continued.
“Typical of certain people who throw the stone but then hide their hands. Don’t ask me who it was because I won’t tell you, but you can reach your own conclusions,” Muscat said.
Finally, Muscat said about the family’s remarks that they are convinced there is no need for more investigations because they are convinced that Fenech was the mastermind that he feels that if there is the need for more investigations to be done to remove any shadow of doubt: “then yes this should happen as soon as possible, with the biggest strength possible.”
“We have removed the gravel from the right shoe, maybe next time we will deal with the left shoe,” Muscat concluded.
Muscat says he does not know how draft copy of Theuma's pardon ended up in Fenech's hands
Asked by The Malta Independent whether he was aware that there had been discussions between Schembri and Fenech on the terms of the pardon granted to Theuma - and that Fenech had even received a copy of the said pardon, Muscat said that he had never been given any drafts of the pardon himself and certainly not electronically.
He said that communication was exclusively between himself and Attorney General Peter Grech, and he had no hand in drafting the pardon - "I practically just signed it," he said.
Asked how, then, Fenech had a copy of the draft on his phone, Muscat answered: "I wouldn't know... I'm not even in a position to speculate as I don't know.
Asked by this newsroom whether it is true that Schembri had disagreed that Theuma should be granted a pardon, Muscat confirmed that it was indeed true.
Asked whether he felt that he had been betrayed by Fenech or Schembri, Muscat said: "I shoulder responsibility for everything - the benefit of hindsight is not a superpower, everyone has that."
Muscat was also asked by several journalists, including this newspaper, about Schembri's testimony that a "very important person" had told him that Fenech's lawyers wanted to meet with him. Media reports named Muscat as that 'very important person'.
However, Muscat said that he was "never approached by Yorgen Fenech's lawyers to introduce them to Keith Schembri."
Cryptically though, he said that "the context of all this is totally different."
"I'm not saying that Keith Schembri is lying, but I prefer to leave the context for when I need to say it," he said, and did not elaborate further.
Answering questions from journalists, Muscat said that his relationship with Schembri has changed because they no longer work together. "We went apart," he said.
Muscat also again categorically denied Fenech's allegation that he was one of three people who knew about Keith Schembri's allegation in the murder.
Asked whether he would stick his neck out for Schembri today and say that he's innocent, Muscat said that today the only people he sticks his neck out for are his children and his wife.