‘Take those’: Adrian Vella tells jury Keith Schembri handed him documents for Yorgen Fenech

Former chief of staff Keith Schembri’s emphatic denial that he ever passed documents to Yorgen Fenech, while under arrest, came under direct challenge on Thursday after the businessman’s longtime doctor, Adrian Vella, told jurors that Schembri personally instructed him to collect four documents from his home and deliver them to the accused.

The testimony strikes at one of the most contested episodes in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation, with Vella giving a detailed account that directly contradicts evidence Schembri gave under oath just days earlier.

Testifying before Madam Justice Edwina Grima, Vella said that on Sunday, 24 November 2019, he received a call from an unknown number. It was Yorgen Fenech.

According to the witness, Fenech told him simply: ‘Go and collect something from Keith.’

Vella said he drove to Schembri’s Mellieħa residence, where he was greeted by the maid and briefly spoke to Schembri’s wife, Josette, before the former chief of staff appeared on the staircase.

‘He stopped halfway down the stairs, pointed towards some documents on the table and told me, ‘Take those’,” Vella testified.

He said there were several papers on the table, but four documents had been placed separately. He picked them up and immediately drove to Portomaso, where Fenech was under police guard.

The doctor told jurors that he did not read the documents, and when he handed over the papers, Fenech appeared visibly shaken.

According to Vella, Fenech repeatedly muttered, ‘It can’t be, it can’t be,’ while hurriedly writing on additional sheets of paper.

He then heard Fenech declare: ‘If I go down, everyone will go down with me.’

Moments later, Fenech’s wife entered the room to inform him that police officers had arrived to escort him downstairs. Fenech immediately put the documents aside and left without returning to them.

The evidence directly contradicts Schembri’s testimony during the same trial.

Last week, the former chief of staff flatly denied ever handing documents to Vella for delivery to Fenech. Schembri insisted he had only become aware of the alleged documents during the police investigation, challenged prosecutors to bring Vella to court for a face-to-face confrontation and said that the doctor was lying.

On Thursday, Vella repeated the allegation under oath, providing the jury with a detailed chronology of the visit to Schembri’s home and the subsequent delivery of the documents.

Earlier in his testimony, Vella described Fenech’s condition in the days before his arrest, telling jurors he had personally diagnosed him with cocaine use after a urine test returned positive. He said Fenech appeared to be under the influence of cocaine when he drove him to Gozo on 15 November 2019 and testified that the businessman repeatedly used his mobile phone to make calls because he did not have his own phone with him.

The jury trial of Yorgen Fenech continues.