Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1279544
3 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 19 AUGUST 2020 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Vella said Schembri pointed at the papers - not more than six papers – which were face down. He said he does not know their contents, nor was he told about them. "They never came face up," he said, "I am shy and I do not pry into other peoples' business or papers," he told the court. Vella said he folded the pa- pers, put them in his pocket, and left the house. He claimed he exchanged no words with Schembri about the case and had headed straight to Fenech's Portomaso apart- ment after taking the papers. "I was scared because there were armed police outside his apart- ment." Inside were Fenech and his wife and children, and his defence counsel Gianluca Caruana Curran. There, he tried to hand the papers to Fenech's lawyer but Fenech himself snatched the papers out of his hands, Vella said. He told the Court that Fenech grew very agitated and began scribbling on the papers. The doctor also acknowl- edged that he had received a call from Schembri at that point. Schembri had called him at around 11.30pm and told him to call him "if something happened". It turns out that when Vel- la was to be arrested, the po- lice were banging on his door for a full 15 minutes. Alleged- ly, his mobile phone had been turned off. So Vella had used his daughter's mobile phone to call Schembri. Vella said he had deleted his WhatsApp account before switching off his mobile phone that Monday evening. "I had personal stuff," he said. "And I communicated with Schembri using Signal." Signal is a mes- saging app that deletes mes- sages immediately, after a set time (usually seconds), set by the user. Vella's testimony clashes with a statement Schembri made under oath in June, in which he said he had "certainly not" giv- en Vella any papers to hand to Fenech. Vella was arrested shortly af- ter the plan came to light but was released without charge. Police Commissioner calls witness 'liar' When being interrogated by Jason Azzopardi, the Caruana Galizia family's lawyer, Vella said that, during one phone call with him, Fenech declared, "If I go down, everyone takes the fall." (Ninzel jien, jinzel kul- hadd mieghi). Vella said he assumed it was related to the murder case. "He was agitated." He said that after his arrest he was interrogated by inspectors Keith Arnaud and Kurt Zahra. Later during the night, he was spoken to by Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar after being led to his office by Arnaud and Zahra. He was never alone with Cutajar. The meeting took place before he gave his official police statement. Vella said that Arnaud and Zahra were attentive to what he said but that Cutajar was calling him a liar about where he got the papers from. Vella said Cutajar had a phone in his hands, but could not say whether Cutajar was looking at it or texting. Planes and boats In Court on Tuesday, Vella al- so testified about a trip to Gozo he had been on with Fenech, the week before Fenech was ar- rested. He said Fenech had contact- ed him on the Friday before his arrest and told him he was very agitated. Vella went to Fenech's Portomaso apartment at around 8pm. Fenech's wife and children were also present. Vella had suggested to Fenech that they go to Gozo. And al- though Fenech was confused as to why they should go to Gozo, the two left straight away for Gozo, where Vella put Fenech up in his Ghajnsielem farm- house. Vella said that his plan was to get Fenech away from everything for a while and then come back to Malta. But on Sunday, Fenech's brother Franco called him and they made plans to meet at the Gozo residence later that day. Vella said that Fenech and his brother had signed a lot of pa- pers and that he did not hear the two brothers discussing the case. But when pressed by prose- cuting Inspector Keith Arnaud, the doctor said Franco had asked Yorgen if he could leave Malta legally. The brothers also discussed the possibility of travelling by plane or boat to different coun- ties, including Paris, Tunisia, Mexico and South America. Vella admitted that he had al- so mentioned travelling by boat and had even called a friend of his, who owned a fishing boat and who – he told the Court – could 'take you anywhere if le- gally possible'. When questioned as to why he had volunteered the infor- mation about his friend, he said that he was bluffing, to be able to contribute something to the conversation. And as to why he called his friend in front of the brothers, Vella said Yorgen and Franco Fenech expected him to do his utmost for them. Undiscovered recordings Earlier in the hearing, a court-appointed expert said that, following further investi- gation, he had discovered sev- eral other, previously undis- covered voice recordings made by murder middleman Melvin Theuma. Theuma claims Fenech or- dered the assassination of Caruana Galizia and investi- gators have relied heavily on voice recordings he made to bolster their case. A psychiatrist is to assess Theuma's mental health, the court also said on Tuesday, after Theuma was found with cuts to his neck, arm and ab- domen which police say were self-inflicted. Adrian Vella in Court: 'Yorgen and Franco Fenech expected my utmost' Dr Adrian Vella (below) said he passed on some papers he collected from Keith Schembri (top right) to Yorgen Fenech. The papers are believed to contain a plan to pin the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia on former economy minister Chris Cardona (bottom right)