Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1004621
5 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 JULY 2018 WIN €1000 Every month when using Findit.com.mt DIRECTORY | DEALS | QUOTES | REVIEWS Next time... use Findit! As Freddie found out, doing your own tax returns is not always the best idea… CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 In conversations with the sources, one source suggest- ed that the person – whose mobile phone number was discarded soon after the text message – could have been in- structed to carry out the ruse. "I am not aware who told this person to stand in as a sort of 'second witness'. But I know that people close to the min- ister and his legal team are aware that when Caruana Gal- izia was fed information on the second visit to the brothel, it was someone setting her up." The second visit referred to the allegation Caruana Galizia published, claiming Chris Car- dona and his aide Joe Gerada had been seen returning to FKK Acapulco in Velbert the morning after she had posted on her website an alleged eye- witness account of the two men inside the brothel. MaltaToday asked Cardona to comment on this newspa- per's information that a third party was asked to feed infor- mation to Caruana Galizia in a bid to mislead her, but no answer was forthcoming at the time of going to print. His spokesperson acknowledged receiving the request and pass- ing it on to his legal team. Both men sued the journal- ist and Cardona requested a €47,000 garnishee order against her. Caruana Galizia's legal team in turn requested that TAP data on the min- ister's and his aide's mobile phones be deposited with the court, to be opened at a later date to prove the location of the two men while on state business in Germany. But in June, Cardona said he was in possession of SMS communication between Caruana Galizia and the al- leged source of the 'brothel- gate' story. "The texts clearly indicate that Caruana Galizia did not know the identity of the source and never sought to verify the identity and the content of these messages," Cardona said. "Additionally, the messages from this source were sent from Malta and not from Germany." The text message, published online by One News, gave the Acapulco saga a fresh twist af- ter one of the two cases against Caruana Galizia was dropped by the presiding magistrate, after Cardona's lawyer Pawlu Lia argued that the failure of Caruana Galizia's heirs to turn up for the sitting should be le- gally interpreted as an admis- sion of guilt. Cardona was this week asked whether he intends reactivat- ing this case, but no comment was forthcoming. The other libel case against Caruana Galizia filed by Car- dona's aide Joe Gerada is still ongoing. Even here, the court preserved Cardona's and Gerada's TAP records for the night they were supposed to be at the brothel. Cardona and Gerada, who have said the al- legations are fabricated lies, said they spent the night at their hotel. Both men had tried to stop the court from preserv- ing the evidence. But lawyers for Cardona and Gerada have insisted that the court preserve the call logs and SMS messages between Caruana Galizia and the per- son they believe was her source: arguably, knowing that this particular source was not in Germany but in Malta, and undermining the credibility of Caruana Galizia's report. Caruana Galizia's FKK Aca- pulco report was based on an anonymous eyewitness ac- count whom she had described as a "family friend", whom she said had seen Cardona inside the brothel. Cardona had not issued an instant denial of the allegation at the time, when he was still in Essen on govern- ment business. The next day, Caruana Gali- zia reported that Cardona and Gerada had returned to the premises, on the strength of a new witness – the source be- ing the text message that Car- dona himself has now insisted was from a Maltese phone number, and which call logs lawyers want preserved. Cardona lawyers want to preserve 'second witness' call logs The text message, published online by One News, gave the Acapulco saga a fresh twist after one of the two cases against Caruana Galizia was dropped by the presiding magistrate