Middleman testifies in Caruana Galizia mastermind compilation
Daphne Caruana Galizia murder middleman Melvin Theuma and lead investigator Keith Arnaud testified in court on Wednesday as prosecutors began making their case against business tycoon Yorgen Fenech.
During the court sitting, which lasted almost five hours, the middleman stressed that he could not declare under oath that former chief of staff, Keith Schembri, had ever handed him money or spoken to him about the journalist’s assassination.
“To me, Yorgen Fenech was the mastermind,” said Mr Theuma, tracing the steps from the day when the businessman had first accosted Mr Theuma, a taxi driver stationed at the Hilton for the past seven years or so, up to the time of his arrest and his immediate willingness to tell police all he knew about the murder, in exchange for a presidential pardon.
“How can we contact George iċ-Ċiniż? I want to kill DCG because she’s going to publish information about my uncle,” Mr Fenech had allegedly told Mr Theuma, one day some three weeks before the announcement of the 2017 election date.
That request had set in motion the chain of events leading up to the car bomb explosion on October 16 of that same year and the investigations and arrests that followed...