Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1175000
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 9 OCTOBER 2019 3 NEWS MATTHEW AGIUS MALTATODAY'S managing editor Saviour Balzan defended his newspa- per's report which revealed that alleged court experts appointed by one of the magistrates who formerly led the magis- terial inquiry into the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination, were not formally appointed by court decree. Balzan was testifying in a libel case filed by John Muscat, who was formerly a court expert on the Caruana Galizia case, but who - according to MaltaTo- day's report - had lost trust among police sources following an investigation into leaks from the magisterial inquiry. In court Balzan insisted that he did not indicate who was responsible for having leaked deliberately-fed information, that was intended to understand who was leaking information to the foreign press. "I had emphasised that John Muscat was one of the inquiry's experts and that he was the brother of Caroline Muscat, a former PN campaign manager and edi- tor of The Shift News, which had been publishing these leaks. "I was generic in what I had said. The police were noticing leaks and had com- plained to the Magistrate Anthony Vella. This is information that I gathered my- self… when the experts were changed, the leaks stopped," Balzan said. Balzan said court records also showed Muscat was not officially confirmed as an expert by the inquiring magistrate, but despite this, he was granted access to sensitive information and privileged in- formation belonging to private individu- als and third parties. Bona fide experts and investigators were upset by these leaks and had confronted the magistrate about them, he said. "The leaks have been interfering with the investigation's primary task… they were imprecise leaks and many times conjectures with a political intent," Balzan said, citing examples which found their way into Italian newspaper La Repubblica. He said one of the Caruana Galizia family's in parte civile lawyers, the Na- tionalist MP Jason Azzopardi, "would often announce the upcoming news on Facebook and Twitter, before the news was broken." Balzan testified that reports in the Italian press of minister Chris Cardona meeting a suspected killer, had been a red herring 'invented' to identify the leaker. The court experts who had been appointed by Magistrate Vella to gather CCTV from houses near Siggiewi's Fer- dinand Bar had not seen Cardona in any footage, but had not told the investiga- tors about this, he said. The police found out about the contents of the footage only after a story appeared on the The Shift News, Radio France and the Times, he said, adding that when the police went to collect the CCTV footage, they were told it had already been collect- ed by the magistrate's experts. Balzan said the police were rightly irked about this, and concerned that footage proving the minister had met one of the accused had not been communicated to them. John Muscat did not remain a court ex- pert after Magistrate Vella was elevated to judge. After a new magistrate was ap- pointed into the inquiry and the experts were changed, the leaks had stopped, Balzan said. "Some journalists had also received logs of calls intercepted, which had originally been in the hands of a court expert. This list is immensely sensitive and could lead to whoever wanted to derail the process, to imagine that because there were some phone calls to family members or close associates of the killers, then they must have had a hand in Caruana Galizia's murder. I wish to remark that among these calls, are private persons and estab- lished lawyers and this in no way means that they were involved." Grilled by lawyer Joseph Zammit Maempel on whether he considered John Muscat to be a 'senior official' in the investigation, Balzan said that he distin- guished between bona fide investigators such as the police and court experts with years of experience, and Muscat. "Muscat has expertise in offering se- curity in music concerts, and he was an expert without being noted down as one by Magistrate Vella; furthermore he has a clear conflict of interest," he said, refer- ring to his direct relationship to a journal- ist. Balzan said that publishing leaked infor- mation should also be done responsibly. He cited the leak to La Repubblica of a video from the investigation, showing murder suspect George Degiorgio leaving the Grand Harbour on the day Caruana Galizia. "I have no problem saying that the video was given to the Italian journal- ist by Jason Azzopardi. This is an exam- ple of the state of affairs when the first magistrate was carrying out the investiga- tions. I do not know what the game is, but in my mind it is all about creating chaos." The case continues in November. Law- yer Veronique Dalli is appearing for Balzan. Lawyer Joseph Zammit Maem- pel is appearing Muscat. Expert not formally appointed to murder inquiry, MaltaToday managing editor tells court CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 "We are focusing on a no deal, because if the withdrawal agreement comes into place, we know what this will en- tail. The biggest challenge will come into play if the UK leaves with a deal, and there is a prob- ability that this happen." The Brexit situation was be- ing monitored closely by the government and discussed eve- ry day, he said. "This is a process, especially considering we don't know the end game. The Brexit date re- mains 31 October, although in the UK a law has been passed which ties the British Prime Minister to demand an exten- sion if no deal is reached by that date. The Prime Minister [Boris Johnson], however, in- sisting he is not bound by this. "Whatever happens, we will safeguard our country and our citizens in all that they do to ensure the least inconven- ience." Principal permanent secretary Mario Cutajar said the possibil- ity of a no-deal Brexit grew a number of months ago, and at this stage work started to pre- pare for this worst-case scenario. "This issue goes above and beyond British citizens in Mal- ta, into areas such as medicine, customs and aviation. There are a very many areas which can be impacted. Government departments rose up to the oc- casion to be prepared. Since then, we have remained active and updating things," Cutajar said. Brexit unit head Glenn Mi- callef said a number of prepa- rations, both at EU and nation- al level, had been put in place to prepare for the possibility of the UK withdrawing from the Union without an agreement. He underlined that, should it leave without a deal in Octo- ber, the UK will be considered a third-country as from 1 No- vember. The government's Brexit hel- pline, 153, had been receiving an increasing influx of calls as the probability of the UK crashing out without an agree- ment grows. In light of this, the govern- ment had been holding inform- ative meetings various stake- holders which are likely to be impacted, including the Malta Council for Economic and So- cial Development (MCESD) and importers and exporters. No-deal Brexit drill to be carried out 'at the appropriate time' Glenn Micallef