Yorgen Fenech’s lawyer suggests defence has additional evidence lifted from Keith Schembri’s devices

Yorgen Fenech’s lawyer suggested in court on Saturday that the defence has additional evidence extracted from Keith Schembri’s devices, prompting a sharp exchange with the prosecution during the murder trial on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.

The exchange occurred while court expert Martin Bajada was testifying about digital forensic work carried out in the case, including a new extraction using an updated version of the forensic analysis software that had previously been used to extract information from devices belonging to the disgraced former OPM chief of staff.

Fenech stands charged with complicity in Caruana Galizia’s voluntary homicide and criminal association. He denies the charges.

Before the afternoon break, defence lawyer Charles Mercieca raised a point of law while Bajada was explaining that Madam Justice Edwina Grima had ordered him to re-extract material from Schembri’s devices using a newer version of the forensic software.

While Schembri had previously told the police that he “lost” his original phone and laptop, two additional phones and several other devices were also seized and subjected to data extraction by court order.

State prosecutor Godwin Cini argued that the court expert should also explain why Schembri’s devices were re-extracted on the court’s orders, and why this was not done for every other device retrieved in the case – including one of the phones that belonged to the accused.

The court further noted that, if the defence intends to produce new extractions during its presentation of evidence which have not yet been admitted into the acts of the case, the admissibility of that evidence would be decided at a later stage.

“We have a chat which will make Dr Godwin go pale when he sees it,” Mercieca said.

“Just like your face went white during Melvin Theuma’s testimony in the Maksar trial,” Cini shot back before Judge Grima called for order.

After a short break, the lawyers were then called into a meeting held behind closed doors. When the sitting resumed, the Judge told the jurors that Bajada had carried out a re-extraction from Schembri’s devices on her own order, not on behalf of the defence.

The afternoon sitting then shifted to another evidentiary dispute, this time concerning emails extracted from Caruana Galizia’s devices.

Bajada explained that he had been awaiting the court’s direction on how to handle emails extracted from the victim’s phone. Redactions were made because the material could contain information identifying Caruana Galizia’s sources.

The defence objected to the prosecution’s intended reference to selected redacted emails, arguing that jurors should be shown the original full versions if the emails were to be used as evidence.

Mercieca argued that incomplete redacted material left the defence unable to properly challenge the evidence.

Mercieca also argued that unless the author of an email is called to testify and confirm its contents, the email should be treated only as evidence that a communication took place, not as proof of its truth.

Prosecutor Anthony Vella replied that the emails were admissible because they were already included in the acts of the case, adding that the prosecution had no objection to the jury being given unredacted copies.

The court said it would first ask Bajada to confirm his original unredacted report. If the prosecution refers jurors to those emails, the court said the jury may be given the original versions, while reporting restrictions would be imposed on any protected details where necessary.

Bajada then opened the sealed original report in court and confirmed it contained unredacted emails extracted from Caruana Galizia’s inbox through a Europol expert. The report runs to 24,923 pages.

The report was immediately resealed by court marshals. The prosecution said it would refer to seven specific emails, the contents of which cannot be reported by the press.

During another point of law discussion, which erupted shortly after the first email was presented to the witness, the court asked the prosecution why it was presenting emails to a witness who could only confirm that he had redacted specific sections of them, without any additional work.

The court eventually settled on accepting emails only if and when they are corroborated by the testimony of a source willing to attest to their contents, and directed the jury to ignore them if they cannot be corroborated by a witness.

The trial continues on Monday morning.