‘I feared losing everything’: Yorgen Fenech’s former business partner admits he didn’t want middleman to go to the police

Yorgen Fenech’s former business partner Johann Cremona admitted on Tuesday that he did not want pardoned middleman Melvin Theuma to go to the police because he feared the fallout from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation would destroy his business and cost him “everything”.

Cremona, who ran BestPlay Gaming Ltd with Fenech, was testifying in the trial by jury against the accused, who stands charged with complicity in Caruana Galizia’s voluntary homicide and criminal association.

Fenech denies the charges.

The businessman told jurors that Theuma became increasingly unstable after confiding in him about his role in the assassination plot, repeatedly turning up at his office, threatening to go to the police or Castille, and asking him to relay messages to Fenech or former OPM security officer Kenneth Camilleri.

“As ugly as it is to say it, I didn’t want him to go to the police,” Cremona told the court. “I respected my business partner a lot, and I didn’t want the company to go into dissolution. One of the reasons was that I feared losing everything – which ended up happening anyway.”

Cremona said he first got to know Theuma through a Qormi property rented by BestPlay Gaming Ltd. A commercial lease agreement signed by Cremona, Fenech and Theuma was shown to the witness in court. Cremona confirmed the document related to premises used by the company and that cheques issued to Theuma formed part of rent payments.

He described his relationship with Theuma as a normal working relationship until around May or June 2018, when Kenneth Camilleri called him and asked him to drive him to meet Theuma.

Cremona said he picked up Camilleri, drove him to Żurrieq, and waited in the car while Camilleri spoke to Theuma. He said Camilleri later refused to explain what the meeting was about.

The following morning, Camilleri turned up at Cremona’s office. Theuma also arrived and asked for him. Cremona said the two men went into another room, where Theuma appeared angry.

A few days later, Theuma again asked Cremona to contact Camilleri. Cremona refused to give him Camilleri’s number, but called him himself. They later met near Castille.

Cremona said he heard Theuma ask Camilleri to see what could be done so that the Degiorgio brothers could “sort out” bail. Theuma also asked for money, he said.

“I didn’t want to hear anything else,” Cremona told the court, saying he realised he had been dragged into something which he was not fully informed about.

Cremona said Theuma later returned to his office and began telling him that he had been “betrayed”. When asked who had betrayed him, Theuma mentioned Fenech and Keith Schembri.

The witness repeatedly stressed that he could not confirm Theuma’s claims as fact, but said Theuma initially mentioned both Fenech and Schembri as the people who had hired him before later focusing more heavily on Fenech.

“I cannot say objectively that Yorgen or Keith hired him, because I only know what Melvin told me,” Cremona said.

Pressed by prosecutor Godwin Cini on whether Theuma identified Fenech as the person who ordered the murder, Cremona said that, in that sense, he confirmed Theuma had said Fenech gave the order.

Cremona said Theuma told him he was the middleman between the executors and Fenech and Schembri. He said Theuma claimed he was paying money regularly to the Degiorgio brothers in prison, often through Mario Degiorgio, and that he would then turn to Fenech to recover the money.

The witness described Theuma as desperate, paranoid and emotionally unstable. He said Theuma would become angry whenever Cremona spoke positively about Fenech, but would calm down when Cremona criticised him or mentioned other possible suspects.

He said he sometimes curtailed conversations or steered Theuma towards other names because he was trying to keep him stable.

“Once, he told me he was about to jump off the roof,” Cremona told the court, adding that he told Theuma to come to him the next day and managed to calm him down.

Cremona said Theuma feared that Fenech and Schembri would have him killed or leave him to take the blame.

“Jeħilsu minni u jaqa’ kollox fuqi,” Cremona recalled Theuma saying over and over again (“They will get rid of me and then blame me for everything.”)

The businessman also said Theuma would become anxious whenever Fenech failed to answer his calls, sometimes threatening to go to the police depot or to Castille to expose everything. Cremona said Theuma once sent him a photo of himself near the depot.

Asked why he did not press Theuma further about contradictions in the story, including Fenech allegedly telling him to stop the murder plot while money was still being paid out, Cremona said he did not want Theuma to think the wrong thing about him.

“It wasn’t the right moment for that to happen,” he said.

Previously, Assistant Commissioner and lead murder investigator Keith Arnaud also named Cremona in his testimony, noting that Theuma had described Cremona as one of two individuals who were trying to calm him down when he started to threaten going to the authorities to expose the murder conspiracy.

Cremona’s testimony is expected to continue on Tuesday afternoon.