17:53:<\/b> That was the defence’s final question for Caruana Galizia.<\/p>\n Police Constable Shaun Cutajar testifies very briefly about his involvement in the seizure of documents related to Melvin Theuma on 22 November 2019 from Yorgen Fenech’s office in Portomaso, and that wraps up proceedings for the day.<\/p>\n The trial will continue tomorrow at 9am.<\/p>\n 17:50:<\/strong> The questioning continues with the defence referring to a post on Daphne’s website published in May 2017 titled ‘Why it was in November that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff instructed Henley & Partners to threaten to ruin me financially by suing me in a London court’<\/i><\/p>\n The hiring coincided with when she started writing about Keith Schembri’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.<\/p>\n Caruana Galizia says that he doesn’t recall the full detail, but does recall that passport concessionaires Henley & Partners threatened to sue his mother – a case which never happened as she was murdered before.<\/p>\n De Marco refers to Yorgen Fenech as a “minority shareholder” in Electrogas, but Caruana Galizia notes that no single shareholder held a majority of the company’s shares.<\/p>\n She asks whether he had found any email sent to Fenech by Daphne, but Caruana Galizia replies that he had not, but there were discussions about the leak with others. He says that Fenech seemed to know that someone was leaking information and that in many ways it was obvious because the information was exclusive.<\/p>\n 17:25:<\/strong> Gianella de Marco, leading the defence, asked Caruana Galizia if he and his mother had been working solely on Electrogas at the time, and refers to a blog post from April 2017 which connected Schembri and Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna to kickbacks from Malta’s passport scheme.<\/p>\n Caruana Galizia says that there were investigations that his mother worked on alone.<\/p>\n “I worked with her on the Panama Papers. I never sent her any data, I told her Maltese names were mentioned. She was working on the passport scheme [investigation] with regard to Keith Schembri,” he says.<\/p>\n De Marco replies that Daphne had copied Matthew into some emails she had sent to Muscat, Schembri and others in relation to the kickbacks story – but Matthew replies that he had been copied in because he was at home when the source came to their house to share the information they had about Muscat and Schembri.<\/p>\n Caruana Galizia says that he never saw that source again, despite trying to make contact after the murder. <\/p>\n 17:15:<\/strong> Matthew Caruana Galiziais back on the witness stand and now faces cross-examination from Yorgen Fenech’s defence.<\/p>\n He is asked about a WhatsApp conversation he had with his mother on April 23, 2016, which is where she asked him to look up 17 Black and Macbridge.<\/p>\n Caruana Galizia explains that he had a lot of hard disks filled with data that wasn’t easily searchable, and he was tasked with uploading that data onto the ICIJ’s platform which was created to search the data related to Panama Papers.<\/p>\n He is then referred to another message relating to former Police Commissioner Michael Cassar’s resignation, which came weeks after the Panama Papers were released and which he cited as being due to health reasons.<\/p>\n Caruana Galizia says that his mother was “frustrated” that he had resigned rather than investigated the Panama Papers. She was also looking into suspected kickbacks to Schembri from the passport scheme at the time.<\/p>\n 16:41<\/strong> The court orders a 15-minute break.<\/p>\n When proceedings resume, Matthew Caruana Galizia will face cross-examination by the defence.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n 16:40<\/strong> Caruana Galizia reflects on how his mother’s murder transformed his life.<\/p>\n “Ever since that day… it’s been a disaster,” he tells the court.<\/p>\n “I was a regular person. I’d go to work, go on holiday, spend time with my friends. After the murder, everything was forgotten. My life became about pursuing justice, about the investigation.<\/p>\n “I felt an enormous sense of responsibility… I felt this overwhelming urgency to work. I left my job and ended my career. I came back to Malta, and all my energy was invested in this. Considering how bad the situation was… we could do nothing.<\/p>\n “I want this to be over, once and for all. I want justice. Honestly, if something happens to me, I don’t care. As long as I get justice for my mum, I can just disappear. After that, nothing else made sense.”<\/p>\n The prosecution then concludes its examination, with no further questions for the witness.<\/p>\n 16:35:<\/strong> He now recalls the minutes prior to his mother’s murder.<\/p>\n He says that she had just prepared a salad, and then got a call from the bank, left, came back because she left her chequebook, and left again – for the last time.<\/p>\n He recalls hearing the explosion and initially thinking it was a gas explosion, but then “felt the blood drain away” as he saw the tower of smoke and approached it.<\/p>\n “First I saw fire on the road – the road was on fire. I saw pieces of metal and flesh. My eyes followed the smoke, and I saw a huge ball of fire. I ran towards it. The [car] horn was going off, it wouldn’t stop. I saw a shadow in the car and I remember saying ‘that’s my mum’.” <\/p>\n He says that he saw the police arriving and shouted at one officer, and saw the other officer start crying in the car. He recounts trying to call his father, who did not pick up as his phone was off, and then calling his younger brother and telling him to come back to the house.<\/p>\n “After that, I remember nothing. I remember I got into a fight with a guy who was taking photos with his phone… by the time I had the strength to go back to the house, there were police officers everywhere.”<\/p>\n 16:25:<\/strong> The prosecution asks about Daphne’s laptop, and Caruana Galizia says that German federal police had it.<\/p>\n He says that German authorities “offered Maltese authorities the opportunity to send questions about the data. They asked us what we wanted to do with data copies of the laptop. The originals were given to a lawyer working on our behalf and they’ve been there ever since.” <\/p>\n 16:20:<\/strong> Caruana Galizia testifies that after his mother was killed, lead investigator Keith Arnaud asked him and his family to list all of the investigations she was working on at the time, in as much detail as possible.<\/p>\n He said that it was “a horrible experience” for him, and said: “The one that concerned me the most was the first one on the list – Electrogas. The two that followed were also related to Electrogas.” <\/p>\n He says that he continued to receive Electrogas leaks even after his mother was assassinated – including one at 4pm on the day of the murder, just an hour after the car bomb went off.<\/p>\n 15:58:<\/strong> Caruana Galizia says that a group of journalists across multiple countries which came to be known as the Daphne Project came together to continue working on stories that Daphne had been working on prior to her murder.<\/p>\n This group found new information that strengthened the belief that Keith Schembri’s and Konrad Mizzi’s companies had told a bank in the Bahamas that they intended to receive €50,000 a month. <\/p>\n At the time, Caruana Galizia testifies, he found it very difficult to know who to trust and he wasn’t really ready to go back to work.<\/p>\n 15:45:<\/strong> There is a bit of a debate on some of the documents being presented: the court says that any document that cannot be proven as authentic cannot really be considered as evidence, as without confirmation it is hearsay.<\/p>\n Prosecutor Godwin Cini however argues that the source who provided them can never be revealed but asked to testify about them. Caruana Galizia chimes in by saying that the scans had confirmed what others had also sent him.<\/p>\n 15:40:<\/strong> Matthew Caruana Galizia returns to the witness stand and is shown several documents, including an FIAU report, and asked to explain what each is.<\/p>\n One document refers to 17 Black having its name changed to Wings Development, while another includes scans of BOV statements and cheques issued in favour of Yorgen Fenech.<\/p>\n The latter, Caruana Galizia testifies, was sent to him by an anonymous source after his mother was killed, and he adds that he had been informed by another source that the bank had wanted nothing to do with Fenech and had closed his accounts.<\/p>\n 15:30:<\/strong> Court is back in session after the lunch break.<\/p>\n Judge Edwina Grima rules on the last argument between the defence and prosecution by saying that before the witness – Matthew Caruana Galizia – resumes his testimony, she will advise jurors of what they can or cannot take into consideration.<\/p>\n 13:06<\/strong> The court breaks for lunch.<\/p>\n Proceedings are due to resume at 3pm, when the court is expected to rule on the defence’s latest objection.<\/p>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n