Fuel smuggling story was a ‘red herring planted to derail investigation’ - Corinne Vella
● Former, current Police Commissioners to testify before Public Inquiry
Daphne Caruana Galizia’s two sons Paul and Andrew testified in front of the public inquiry board on Friday, along with Daphne’s sister Corinne Vella, who stated that the narrative that Daphne’s assassination had something to do with fuel smuggling was nothing more than a red herring planted to derail investigations.
Various points of note emerged from their testimonies, with Vella speaking of the false trails, such as that of the involvement of fuel smuggling in her sister’s assassination, that were planted in order to throw journalists off the scent of the case.
Andrew Caruana Galizia meanwhile spoke of how his diplomatic posting with the foreign office was terminated soon after the 2017 election, something which led to his mother stopping her writings for two weeks.
He also spoke of how government officials had turned his mother into a target and how police presence near their home stopped right after John Rizzo was replaced as Police Commissioner.
Paul Caruana Galizia meanwhile spoke of how recent evidence points towards the notion that the highest levels of the country’s executive not only failed to stop the assassination but may well have been involved in it.
He also said that Justice Minister Owen Bonnici had insisted on the inclusion of former judge Antonio Mizzi on the inquiry, while also noting how Keith Schembri’s missing phone data could be cloned in the same manner that his mother’s phone data was collected - her phone having been in the car with the journalist when the car bomb was detonated, but was cloned anyway.
The Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia and former Police Commissioner John Rizzo – who led the police force between 2001 and 2013 – will testify during the next sitting on 7 January, while Rizzo’s successors Peter Paul Zammit and Michael Cassar will testify in the one after, two days later. Lawrence Cutajar, the current Police Commissioner, will testify in a future sitting.
Paul Caruana Galizia, Daphne’s son, dedicated the first part of his testimony to one of the terms of reference of the inquiry – that related to whether there was state involvement, even in a cover-up. He said that recent evidence shows that the highest levels of the country’s executive not only failed to stop the assassination, but may have also been involved in it.
He also spoke about Keith Schembri’s lost phone and his refusal to hand over his cloud passwords, lamenting that investigators had managed to access his mother’s phone despite the fact that it was in the car with her, and stated that if it were possible for her phone data to be cloned, then a suspect’s phone could also be cloned.
He referred to the notes received by Yorgen Fenech – accused of being the mastermind behind the assassination – from Keith Schembri through family doctor Adrian Vella which allegedly instructed the business tycoon to pin the murder on Minister Chris Cardona.
He said that this shows that Schembri wanted to cover up the assassination and also shows that the use of the Economy Minister as the scapegoat was deemed to be realistic enough as a possibility.
He noted that both Theuma and Fenech had said under oath that Schembri was keeping the latter abreast with the investigations. Fenech said that Schembri was informing him one week after the murder - when Fenech was not on the radar, suggesting that Schembri knew about the murder plot, Paul Caruana Galizia said. Why would he inform him otherwise, he questioned.
Paul Caruana Galizia listed Yorgen Fenech’s brother Franco Fenech and his uncle Ray Fenech, OPM official Kenneth Camilleri, Johann Cremona, and former NET TV journalist Frank Psaila and former Times of Malta journalist Ivan Camilleri as people who knew details about the investigation.
Ivan Camilleri issued a statement later in the day “publicly and categorically” denying that he was ever informed or privy to any details or investigations connecting Yorgen Fenech to the alleged assassination plot of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“As stated in my earlier public statement last December 19, I wish to take this opportunity to re-iterate that, ‘I have never discussed, spoken to or otherwise communicated with Mr Yorgen Fenech on the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia’,” his statement read before noting that he could not do so as he had no such information.
Paul Caruana Galizia also spoke of other evidence which has emerged from the testimonies in the case so far, including that Kenneth Camilleri had promised bail for the Degiorgos and Vince Muscat in a hearing, and of Melvin Theuma’s trip to Castille and his obtainment of a job.
Corinne Vella, Daphne’s sister meanwhile named various members of the Prime Minister’s office, such as the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat himself, his former chief of staff Keith Schembri, and his former head of communications Kurt Farrugia, as people who should be asked to testify.
Farrugia, she said, had instructed foreign journalists who requested an interview with Muscat that their requests would only be considered if they did not ask about money laundering, corruption, or Daphne’s assassination.
She also named now PL MP Glenn Bedingfield as another person who should be asked to testify, Corinne Vella said, noting that he spent much of time running a blog which targeted Daphne – a blog which Muscat defended as “freedom of expression”.
With that blog, she said, Bedingfield’s only intention was to target Daphne, portraying her as a propagandist, a hate blogger, a purveyor of gossip and fake news, and a witch.
Paul Caruana Galizia earlier in the sitting described Bedingfield as “relentless” in his targeting of Daphne, noting that there were a total of 597 posts on his blog which mentioned his mother’s name in the headline. This is aside from countless others which would have mentioned her in the body of the article, he said.
Josef Caruana, former Orizzont editor, should also be called to testify, Corinne Vella said before noting that he had published an editorial calling for “traitors” to be silenced. Mystery OPM official Neville Gafa was also named by Vella.
Chris Cardona and Joe Gerada lied under oath so that Daphne’s accounts were frozen - Corinne Vella
That libel cases were used as one of the main vehicles of threats against Daphne Caruana Galizia was mentioned by more than one of the three testifying, however Corinne Vella went a step further and said that Economy Minister Chris Cardona and his aide Joe Gerada had lied under oath so that Daphne’s accounts could be frozen.
She referred to the sheer number of libel cases which Daphne was facing: 47 in total, over 70% of which were filed by government officials, and also said that Economy Minister Chris Cardona and his aide Joe Gerada had lied under oath so that Daphne’s accounts could be frozen.
Daphne Caruana Galizia’s accounts were frozen by the court as part of a libel case filed by Cardona and Gerada against her after she reported that the two had gone to a brothel in Germany while on government duty.
Andrew Caruana Galizia, another of Daphne’s sons, meanwhile noted how libel cases filed by government officials normally accompanied by government press releases had nothing to do with clearing their names - it was to discredit Daphne, he said, adding that the freezing of her accounts by Chris Cardona was the most egregious example. This exposed the flaws behind the libel laws, he said, noting that the inquiry should look into this.
Corinne Vella meanwhile said that new libel reforms, which would have seen the registration of news outlets and blogs among others were done to purposely to target Daphne, with the intention of the registration of her blog Running Commentary being rejected, meaning that she could not protect her sources anymore.
On another occasion, she said, the Office of the Prime Minister had put pressure on The Malta Independent to shed Daphne as a columnist, promising more advertising revenue to the newspaper if she was dropped.
Andrew Caruana Galizia meanwhile also testified that only weeks after the 2017 election, his diplomatic posting had been terminated by the Foreign Service. He said that he was told by the Permanent Secretary not to speculate about the reason, but he noted that he felt that it was a clear threat to his mother as to what the government can do. She had stopped writing for two weeks after that, he said.
There were cases of more physical threats: he spoke of how she used to be shouted at and insulted when she went to Valletta, leading to her not leaving the house unless she absolutely had to.
Corinne Vella meanwhile noted during her testimony that the attacks on the family pets - the most recent being when one of her dogs was poisoned in 2017 - were another means of threatening her, and the fact that nobody was ever caught and prosecuted only created further impunity.
That Daphne was a government target, he says, is “incontestable”. The government’s strategy to discredit Daphne through “criminal propaganda” was an extension of what the Labour Party used to do with the exception being that the perpetrators, figures such as Glenn Bedingfield and Kurt Farrugia, were now on the public payroll, Andrew Caruana Galizia said.
It was the Panama Papers that turned Daphne into an investigative journalist, Andrew Caruana Galizia said. He noted that from that point on she wasn’t a nuisance anymore, but a serious threat, explaining how her stories had led to Electrogas struggling to find international investment, the passport scheme being targeted by the European Commission, and other effects on the sale of hospitals and on the American University of Malta.
After 2017, he said, Daphne was blamed even by the PN for the defeat, meaning that there was no institutional support for her anymore as the Opposition was the only body following up on her work. Her reports on the new Opposition Leader - Adrian Delia - added to that isolation that she felt, he said.
Police protection stopped the moment John Rizzo was replaced as Commissioner, sons say
The police and the lack of protection that they provided to the family since 2013 was one of the stand-out themes of the sitting.
Paul Caruana Galizia stated that Peter Paul Zammit, Michael Cassar, Lawrence Cutajar, and Ray Zammit - the last four Police Commissioners - have a case to answer for as they never took action on her writings, while also stating that the police force does not have the basic technology it needs and had to rely on a foreign entity – the FBI – to analyse the data they had, a situation which he described as a “disgrace”.
Paul spoke about the police protection that the family used to have. He said that protection was not necessarily provided through a fixed point; in 2006, the police used to run frequent patrols through their road in Bidnija. He said that everything had changed when John Rizzo was removed as Police Commissioner by the new government in 2013.
However, he noted, it is known that the best way to protect a journalist is to follow up on their work and said that when his mother had broken the news about the Panama Papers. The police failed her as she was not given added protection and her work was not picked up on, he said. This lack of action signalled, he said, that she was “fair game”.
Corinne Vella meanwhile called into question Lawrence Cutajar’s behaviour on the day of the murder. She said that she does not recall seeing or meeting Cutajar at the scene of the crime on the day of the assassination or the day after.
“His absence from the crime scene downplays the seriousness of the crime,” she said. Aside from one press conference some days after the assassination, he has been absent from all communications about the investigation, she said. She said that it seems relevant to the scope of the inquiry for him to be called to account not only for systemic failures but also for his own behaviour on 16 October 2017.
Andrew Caruana Galizia meanwhile spoke of how in the wake of his mother’s assassination, the family had consulted security experts who work with journalists at risk on how best to protect themselves. They wrote to the police asking for basic information about what measures they had put in place, such as through a threat assessment, so that they could take measures themselves.
He said that they never replied, with the only communication received being a phone call to Peter Caruana Galizia from the Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar who told him, “Taf li ghandkom fixed point, huwx?” [You do know that you have a fixed point, right?].
Andrew Caruana Galizia said that they had never received a reply and noted his belief that this was because no such assessments had ever been made.
He noted that Melvin Theuma had said in his testimony that the assassination had been delayed due to a roadblock in the area, noting that this prolonged Daphne’s life for a number of days if not weeks. He questioned how much longer her life would have been prolonged had the police even provided her with minimal protection.
Andrew Caruana Galizia also mentioned a person who was an army officer at the time used to follow his mother on his own initiative as a form of counter surveillance. The person would do this while he was off duty. Andrew told the Board that this person may be willing to testify, and that he was willing to name him in-camera.
Impunity, institutional
Daphne became the last barrier between the criminality she was uncovering and total impunity for her perpetrators, which made her the first target
failures facilitated my mother’s death - Andrew Caruana Galizia
Andrew Caruana Galizia spoke of how impunity and institutional failures in the country had facilitated his mother’s death.
The very fact that the alleged hitmen had only requested €150,000 shows how low they thought the risk to them was, he said and the fact that they had escaped justice long enough to build the reputation that they had was to the extent that they were asked for by name showed how much impunity in the country had facilitated Daphne’s murder.
Corinne Vella later summed this point as well: “Daphne became the last barrier between the criminality she was uncovering and total impunity for her perpetrators, which made her the first target,” she said. Fuel smuggling story was a ‘red herring planted to derail investigation’ - Corinne Vella Another point which featured in two testimonies on Friday was the notion that Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed due to her investigating a story related to fuel smuggling. However, Corinne Vella described the story as a “red herring planted to derail the investigation”, while Paul Caruana Galizia noted that the narrative was pushed by Keith Schembri. International journalists, Vella said, had asked her about fuel
smuggling and she noted that she knew for a fact that Daphne had never investigated fuel smuggling the fuel smuggling story was a red herring planted to derail the investigation, she said. The false narratives promoted intensively in the wake of the murder need to be seen as deliberate attempts to derail public scrutiny of the murder and deflect attention from the perpetrators and their actual motives, Vella said “We still don’t have a full and complete picture about how much they damaged the investigation; but what I can say is that in the weeks after the murder we fielded lots of questions about fuel smugglers,” Paul Caruana Galizia said in his testimony.
Timing of early election compared to timeline of assassination plot means it must be investigated Corinne Vella
Corinne Vella said that Muscat should be asked about the calling of the 2017 election – which came with a year early. Given that the plot to assassinate Daphne was born in 2017, postponed when the election was called, and reactivated afterwards, she said that the timing of the election is relevant to investigate.
The official reason for the election was that Daphne had caused instability in the country, she said. That is not true, she said - the domain registered for the campaign slogan was done in April 2017 and a month-long campaign called Four Years of Firsts followed which was a typical lead-up to an electoral announcement.
However, Daphne only became aware of the declarations in the Pilatus Bank safe after the domain was registered and after the campaign started - something which Corinne said she has proof of in her phone.
The timing of a meeting with Christian Kalin from Henley & Partners is also suspect, she said. Vella said that when Daphne had met Kalin in 2017 over the latter’s threat to sue her based on articles from 2014, she had questioned him as to why he wanted them removed now - to which Kalin replied that it was because an election was coming. The election had not been announced at that point, Vella noted.
Justice Minister insisted on having Antonio Mizzi on inquiry - Paul Caruana Galizia
Paul Caruana Galizia also spoke about the Attorney General, Peter Grech, lamenting his lack of action on the leaked FIAU reports which implicated a wide-ranging corruption scandal. He states that when it came to the calls for the Public Inquiry, the family was “rubbished and derided” by the Attorney General through “condescending, patronising, and very aggressive” correspondence which even implied that the family was lying to its lawyers.
He spoke of how they had attended meetings with the government for the inquiry. He said that Justice Minister Owen Bonnici had in mind an arbitration style of inquiry - which the family rejected before also suggesting members who were not up to scratch. One such member who Bonnici insisted on was Antonio Mizzi - something which Paul Caruana Galizia said he now finds worrying given new evidence emerging that Melvin Theuma had advised Yorgen Fenech to speak to Antonio Mizzi in relation to the case - saying that if the family with the Justice Minister telling the family that if it would make his life easier if they could accept Mizzi onto the board.
Former Police Commissioners John Rizzo, Peter Paul Zammit, Michael Cassar and current commissioner Lawrence Cutajar will all be called to testify before the public inquiry.