Schembri tried to keep tabs on Yorgen Fenech in months leading to arrest

Former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri summoned one of Yorgen Fenech’s former business partners to Castille in the months before Fenech’s arrest in 2019, asking whether the businessman accused of masterminding Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder had been in contact, jurors heard on Tuesday.

Johann Cremona, who ran BestPlay Gaming Ltd with Fenech, testified that he was contacted by someone from Castille around September 2019 and told Schembri wanted to speak to him.

“So I went there to meet him for the first time,” Cremona told the court.

He said Schembri initially spoke to him about the gaming industry before switching the subject to Fenech, who was abroad at the time.

Asked by prosecutor Godwin Cini why Schembri was asking him about Fenech, Cremona said: “I imagine because he knew I was his business partner.”

Cremona said Schembri appeared worried and asked him to let him know if he spoke to Fenech.

“He asked me to tell him if I spoke to Yorgen. I hadn’t given him any information about what I knew,” Cremona said.

The witness said Schembri later texted him on Signal asking whether Fenech had spoken to him. Cremona said he always replied “no”, even though he was still communicating with Fenech about work matters on Signal and sending monthly company reports that included BestPlay’s earnings.

Madam Justice Edwina Grima asked Cremona whether he had told Fenech that Schembri was asking about him.

“Yes, I did,” Cremona replied, saying Fenech told him: “Tagħtix kasu” (ignore him).

Cremona said he informed Fenech weeks after Schembri first called him to Castille. He said he did not remember why he had not told him earlier.

He added that Schembri continued speaking to him “every now and then”, including about Fenech and football, but eventually stopped asking.

Cremona said he assumed Schembri had found a way to reach Fenech directly.

The testimony came during Fenech’s trial by jury. Fenech stands charged with complicity in Caruana Galizia’s voluntary homicide and criminal association. He denies the charges.

Earlier in the sitting, Cremona told jurors that middleman Melvin Theuma had claimed he was receiving information through disgraced former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, via Theuma’s “mentor” Edwin Brincat.

According to Cremona, Theuma said he knew the Commissioner was aware of his secret recordings and that police were planning to raid him around July or August 2019. Cremona said Theuma claimed this information came through Brincat and Cutajar.

Cremona also said Theuma told him he had recorded Fenech and asked Cremona to specifically inform Fenech about the recordings. Cremona said he texted Fenech on Signal, but Fenech did not respond.

The prosecution then pressed Cremona over another point in his evidence. Cremona repeatedly insisted that he had never discussed the murder case with Fenech, saying they only spoke about business.

But Cini referred him to his prior testimony, in which Cremona had said he called Fenech after reports emerged about “a businessman” being linked to the murder investigation. Cremona said he did not remember the details of the call, but conceded that he had contacted Fenech on Signal and that Fenech had denied involvement.

The witness was also pressed over another Signal exchange in which Fenech allegedly sent him a photo relating to Anthony Chetcuti, known as Il-Bigli, described by Cremona as an intermediary between former economy minister Chris Cardona and one of the killers, George Degiorgio.

The prosecution challenged Cremona on a detail he said he was mentioning for the first time during the trial: that the photo Fenech sent him included two people, one of whom was Cardona. Cini noted that in previous statements and testimony, Cremona had always referred to one person in the photo and had never mentioned Cardona.

Cremona said his answers depended on the questions he was asked and insisted he was not giving evidence to help Fenech. “I am not here to do anyone any favours,” he said.

Cremona’s testimony extended the same pattern that has already emerged with several key witnesses in the trial: prosecutors have repeatedly confronted witnesses with prior statements when their live testimony shifted, expanded, or introduced new context not previously given under oath.

Those key witnesses who were confronted by the prosecution about deviations from previous testimony include two of the convicted killers, Vince Muscat and George Degiorgio, businessman and Melvin Theuma’s former mentor Edwin Brincat, disgraced former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, and now, Cremona.

With Cremona, those shifts go to central parts of the case: whether Theuma named Fenech alone or Fenech and Schembri together; whether Cremona spoke to Fenech about the murder investigation; what Schembri wanted from Cremona in 2019; and why details involving Cardona are only surfacing now.

“There was a lot of panic and chaos at the time; now I can testify here calmly,” Cremona said when challenged by the prosecution.

“Melvin started recording me the day after I buried my dad… I never had any pauses at any point in time from all this. I am more calm and can talk more serenely now,” Cremona insisted.

Cremona was later confronted with one of Theuma’s secret recordings of him. Throughout the prosecution’s questions about the contents of the recording, in which Theuma can be heard expressing his concerns about Fenech not providing additional payments for the imprisoned executors, Cremona admitted that much of what he said to Theuma at the time was meant to keep him in check.

In his ill-fated attempts at restraining Theuma from speaking to the police, Cremona can be heard implying that he knew what the police had on Theuma, claiming that he would accompany him to the police and provide him with questions that they would interrogate him about in advance, and that he would talk to Inspector Ray Aquilina to make arrangements for him.

The trial continues on Wednesday morning with Cremona’s ongoing testimony.