The Malta Independent on Sunday
Cardona’s people close ranks after accusations that court SMS evidence is fake
An offer by this newspaper to review the mobile phone Transferred Account Procedure (TAP) data of Economy Minister Chris Cardona, which would conclusively prove the minister’s whereabouts on the day he was accused by assassinated journalist Daphne Caru- ana Galizia of having visited a brothel in Germany.
In the meantime, Cardona’s lawyer, Pawlu Lia, yesterday refused to comment on the veracity of evidence he presented in court on Thursday, in the form of a photograph of a mobile phone screen showing what is purported to be an SMS exchange between Caru- ana Galizia and her source at the FKK Acapulco in January 2017.
Cardona’s aide, Joseph Gerada, who was accused by Caruana Galizia of having visited the brothel in tandem with Cardona, has also failed to return phone calls from this newspaper
despite having pledged to do so once he was done with “shopping” yesterday.
On Thursday, Cardona’s and Gerada’s lawyer Pawlu Lia presented evidence in court during libel proceedings against the slain journalist in the form of a screenshot of an SMS exchange between her and her source.
The main problem with the SMS, which was later published by the Labour Party media, was that it was dated 31 January, while Caruana Galizia’s story on the minister’s alleged brothel tryst, based on that same source’s real-time eyewitness account, was reported a day earlier, on 30 January.
Apart from the relative ease with which one can doctor a screen image or a mobile phone’s contacts to make it look as though a message had been received by anyone under the sun (for example change a contact’s name to ‘Barack Obama’ and every text you receive from that contact will appear to have come from the former US president), this rudimentary problem with the date appears overwhelmingly suspicious.
Caruana Galizia reportedly had two sources for the story. The first allegedly reported to her over the phone Cardona’s movements in real-time, while the second source had contacted Caruana Galizia the next day to inform her that Cardona had returned to the brothel the next day for a short time.
That ‘evidence’, which entered the public domain when it was published by ONE News on Thursday, has been picked apart time and time again since it appeared.
None of the involved parties approached by this newspaper, however, would speak about that evidence, not even to say how ONE News ended up with evidence that was presented in court.
In an attempt to get to the bottom of the matter, The Malta Independent on Sunday got in touch with Lia yesterday about the evidence he presented in court on his client’s behalf.
Lia, however, would not be drawn into any sort of statement, saying he would not comment on matters sub judice: “In my opinion those lawyers who speak to the press about ongoing cases are breaching ethics, I never do this and I will not do so now.”
Even when this newspaper pointed out that the issue could also concern his own professionalism, and that the SMS filed in court was now in the public domain after it was published online by ONE News, Lia still refused, saying, “I’m a lawyer and am just doing my job.”
Joe Gerada was also contacted, but said he was in a shop and couldn’t talk. Despite a promise that he would call back, he never did.
This newspaper also contacted Cardona’s secretariat with an offer to review his mobile phone TAP records for the day in ques- tion, records which featured in the court case but which have not been made public, but the offer was ignored.
On Thursday, the two libel cases filed by Economy Minister Chris Cardona against Caruana Galizia over the infamous FKK Acapulco claims were unexpectedly cancelled. The cases filed by the minister’s aide, Joe Gerada, still stand.
In an announcement through the Department of Information, perhaps not the correct conduit since Cardona and Gerada had instituted the libel cases against Caruana Galizia in their personal capacities, the government claimed the SMS evidence in court “proves” that Daphne Caruana Galizia did not know the identity of the source. It also said the evidence showed that the SMSs sent to the assassinated journalist originated from Malta, and not from Germany.
Cardona and Gerada had sued for libel over allegations published by Caruana Galizia in January 2017, suggesting that they had visited a German brothel while on a taxpayer-funded trip to Germany.
In the DOI statement, although the Cardona cases had been dropped, the government said Dr Lia had however filed an application and evidence in the cases instituted by the minister’s adviser Joe Gerada.
Apparently shooting from the hip and pre-empting the court’s analysis of the evidence produced, the government said, “These included text messages sent between the number used by Daphne Caruana Galizia and an anonymous source. The texts clearly indicate that Caruana Gal- izia did not know the identity of the source and never sought to verify the identity and the content of these messages. Additionally, in the application presented today, it is also stated that the messages from this source were sent from Malta and not from Germany.
“The information relayed in these messages was then used as the basis of Caruana Galizia’s published stories in which defamatory allegations were made against Minister Cardona and Dr Gerada. In the light of this new evidence, the application filed today includes a request to the court to preserve call logs and SMS messages in relation to the communications made between the defendant and the source over the relevant period in relation to the stories published by Daphne Caruana Galizia.”
Mobile operators, however, do not retain the content of messages, only the traffic data, and it would be uncommon for such logs to have been retained some 17 months down the road.
Questioned by MaltaToday on Friday, Cardona did not rule out reinstituting the libel cases against Caruana Galizia’s heirs after the court ruled that they be dropped. The cases can be restored by means of an application filed by the plaintiff, Cardona, within three months of cancellation.
Cardona told the newspaper that his legal team was considering its options. He told the newspaper, “It appears that Daphne Caruana Galizia’s heirs are not in Malta so these are the circumstance we must evaluate [the situation] as a legal team and we will take it from there.”