Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1272935
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 JULY 2020 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The spirit of the conversa- tions are disparaging of Yorgen Fenech, apart from pointing to collusion with top police brass and Castille, and Melvin Theu- ma speaks freely of sums of money intended to influence Lawrence Cutajar to green- light a presidential pardon for him. Theuma says in the recorded conversations that he had given €15,000 to Edwin Brincat 'il- Ġojja' – an associate of Theu- ma's who enjoyed familiarity with Cutajar himself – so that Cutajar could "take the case and go on holiday". "I went to give him the money myself," Theuma is heard say- ing of the alleged bribe. "I told him, 'shall I give them to you in packets of €5,000?'." Cremona thinks he is being asked to relay the offer to his own contacts, ostensibly refer- ring to Kenneth Camilleri. But Theuma says he is referring to Edwin Brincat: "No… I told Ed- win, I asked him if he wants the cash in packets of five… he said he would take no cash from me, not even if I paid him a shilling a time, because all he wanted is that I get the pardon." The degree of detail in the conversations clearly show that both Cremona and Theu- ma were aware of the police's next steps in a raid that was to be carried out on Theuma's properties. Theuma was a loan shark who ran a profitable taxi system outside the Hilton with the blessing of Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech, for whom he acted as a gopher and occasion- al chauffeur. He was apprehen- sive that police would also raid his partner's property, while Cremona advises Theuma to hide his illegal lottery booklets at his own property. Cremona himself suggests in the recorded conversations of having the capacity to influence the police's actions through his "power to speak to Kenneth… you know from where that is coming." The former police commis- sioner has insisted he never knew or spoke to Theuma, and never accepted money in ex- change for information. Now under investigation after court testimony suggesting that he tipped off Theuma about a po- lice raid, Cutajar had said on Xtra that Theuma was bluffing in his conversations with Cre- mona. Cutajar, who admitted meeting Edwin Brincat alleged- ly to obtain information on the recordings Theuma was har- bouring, claims his interactions were done with the sole inten- tion of obtaining Theuma's re- cordings. "When Edwin Brincat came to me, I took the oppor- tunity to try to get something from him. That's what I de- cided at that time, and I asked him if he knew where these re- cordings might be. I felt at that moment that I should take the chance," Cutajar said, denying having taken any money from Brincat. However, it is apparent that some form of communication between police top brass was taking place with Castille, at least through the agency of Kenneth Camilleri. The record- ed conversations between Cre- mona and Theuma discuss the rejection of a pardon for Vince Muscat 'il-Kohhu' – arrested in December 2019 and accused of having been part of the mur- der team. In them, Cremona tells Theuma: "I'll tell you pre- cisely what Kenneth told me: everything depends on you." And Theuma tells him: "Oh, how I prayed to God that he is not given a pardon, Johann, how great God is, how I prayed." Theuma also claimed it was the police commissioner who told him, or perhaps through a third party, that Interpol were asking the Maltese police why he (Theuma) had not yet been arrested. Cremona retorts, say- ing that it is likely untrue that Interpol were knocking on the police's door. "I think the Com- missioner wants money," he tells Theuma. In other conversations, Theu- ma reveals that Edwin Brincat had told Cutajar that Theuma was displeased that the police would raid the properties in which his partner and daughter live. To which Cremona replies, that he would inform Kenneth Camilleri on agreeing that the raid would not include his part- ner's home. Theuma's health 'stable' Melvin Theuma, the self-con- fessed middleman in the mur- der of journalist Daphne Carua- na Galizia, remains in a "stable" condition at Mater Dei Hospi- tal's Intensive Therapy Unit, the police said on Saturday. Theuma was found with mul- tiple stab wounds at his Swieqi apartment on Tuesday night. He was found with damaged vocal cords and multiple stab wounds which police say initial evidence shows were self-in- flicted. The Times reported on Sat- urday he has written a note from his hospital bed saying he stabbed himself multiple times out of remorse and because his evidence in the murder case was being doubted. 'I told Edwin if he wants the cash in packets of five thousand' MATTHEW VELLA AN attempt to introduce an "unexplained wealth order" law by the justice minister has been placed on the backburner, ac- cording to a Cabinet source. Although the reason is un- clear, the legal proposal for ex- ecutive powers to clamp down on unexplained wealth and the accumulation of assets such as cars, boats and property without properly justifying the origins of the money, was not met with unanimous favour inside the Cabinet. The law was being spearheaded by Edward Zammit Lewis. Unexplained wealth orders (UWO) are used to tackle mon- ey laundering and corruption, aimed specifically at accessing evidence to justify large pur- chases made by alleged high-risk individuals. The UWO is intended to give law enforcement a tool to freeze or recover assets when there is not yet enough evidence to bring a charge, but when there is rea- sonable suspicion to conclude that someone's assets were the fruit of ill-gotten gains. In the UK, UWOs can be is- sued when a person is suspected of being involved in criminal ac- tivity, and when a person's assets are disproportionate to their in- come. The first covers not only individuals involved in or con- nected to serious crimes, but al- so 'Politically Exposed Persons' (PEPs), as well as their family members and close associates. UWOs work in the same way as warrants obtained by the courts for the police's extraordinary powers. Once a UWO is issued, it re- quires the respondent to ex- plain how they obtained the property or asset in question. If the respondent fails to reply to the UWO, the property is "pre- sumed" to have been obtained through ill-gotten gains. A recent attempt to freeze the alleged properties and assets of one-time Malta exile Rakhat Aliyev, the former deputy chief of Kazakhstan's security service who faced criminal charges of money laundering before dying in prison – was kicked out by the UK's High Court. Police there sought to seize three properties his family owned in London, claiming they were acquired as a means to launder the money Aliyev had obtained illegally. But the High Court found that links between RA and the properties were in- sufficient to justify the UWOs. Unexplained wealth order on backburner "I went to give him the money myself," Theuma is heard saying of the alleged bribe. "I told him, 'shall I give them to you in packets of €5,000?'."