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2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 JUNE 2021 NEWS Delivery fee of just €1 per day for orders up to 5 newspapers per address To subscribe 1. Email us your choice of newspapers, recipient's name, address, contact number to production @millermalta.com 2. Forward cheques payable to Miller Distributors Ltd on address: Miller House, Airport Way, Tarxien Road, Luqa LQA1814 Queries on other news- papers and magazines, production@ millermalta.com maltatoday Same-day delivery of your favourite Sunday newspaper Monday-Friday MaltaToday Midweek • €1 BusinessToday • €1.50 Sunday MaltaToday • €1.95 ILLUM • €1.25 Support your favourite newspaper with a subscription https://bit.ly/2X9csmr MATTHEW VELLA A claim by Labour Whip Glenn Bedingfield in the House that the Caruana Galizia family had "de- stroyed" the assassinated jour- nalist's laptop, has been gleaned from a letter from German po- lice investigators to the Attorney General, saying they had deleted the data in their hands at the re- quest of the family. The letter is part of the devel- oping magisterial inquiry into the assassination of the journalist, of which Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech stands accused of master- minding. In the same week that Fenech's lawyers requested that the courts they be handed over the journalist's laptop, Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield protested in the House that the family had "destroyed" data that had been handed over to German police investigators. But it is yet unclear how the convergence of the Labour MP with Fenech's demands for the journalist's laptop bears any sig- nificant weight to a case whose main witness, State evidence Melvin Theuma, has direct testi- mony of Fenech's role in the as- sassination. The German chief public prose- cutor of Wiesbaden informed the Attorney General in Malta on 8 July 2019, that the Caruana Gal- izia family had asked for the "data to be deleted" after carrying out its own analysis of the hard-disc's contents. The request from the AG ar- rived late in the day, on 19 June 2019 - a year and a half after the assassination and in a period where, unbeknown to most, ac- tive steps were taken to derail the investigation. In the letter, the German prose- cutor said it had already informed Magistrate Aaron Bugeja of legal concerns against the executions of the investigation orders previ- ously sent. Thereafter, the Caruana Gal- izia family, as the legal owner of the data, asked that it be deleted. The Germans complied with the request. Originally, the laptop had been handed over to the German fed- eral police in a bid to protect Caruana Galizia's sources. The move was carried out in full co- operation with Magistrate An- thony Vella. Investigation's derailment The family's jealous guardian- ship of that data has been vindi- cated by the events provoked by the arrest of Melvin Theuma, the middleman in the assassination, and of Yorgen Fenech: top brass in politics and the police force attempted to influence investi- gations in a bid to gain access to Theuma's cache of recorded con- versations with Fenech and oth- er actors who were aware of the murder plot. The revelations of political in- terference in the investigation, with Keith Schembri having been in indirect contact with Melvin Theuma after the assassination, and the connivance of former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, proved that there was no safe haven in Malta for the sourc- es in the journalist's laptop. A court this week dismissed a request by Yorgen Fenech's law- yers for two laptops and three drives belonging to Caruana Galizia to be presented as ev- idence. The court said the de- vices were not in the possession of the police and could not be presented. His lawyers claim the devices were important not only to prove Fenech's innocence but also to test the version supplied by Theuma: ostensibly, his claim that Fenech wanted to protect his uncle, Ray Fenech, from Caruana Galizia's revelations. But Theuma himself has de- clared to leader investigator Keith Arnaud that this reference was only made once, and in the subsequent conversations with Fenech to carry out the hit, the reference to the information had clearly referred to him. Fenech was the owner of 17 Black, a secret offshore firm in Dubai suspected of being planned as a conduit for kickbacks to the Panama offshore companies set up by former energy minister Konrad Mizzi and former prime minister Joseph Muscat's chief of staff Keith Schembri. Fenech was a shareholder in Electrogas, the company that won a public tender to build a €200 million gas plant with an 18-year contract to procure LNG through shareholder SOCAR Trading, of Azerbaijan. Caruana Galizia revealed the existence of 17 Black, without es- tablishing its clear ownership, in February 2017. Germans told to delete DCG laptop data The family's jealous guardianship of Daphne Caruana Galizia's data has been vindicated by the events provoked by the arrest of Melvin Theuma, which later revealed a political attempt at derailing the investigation Zero COVID cases NO new virus cases were de- tected on Saturday, as Malta approached 80% vaccine cover- age. There are 29 active cases of COVID-19. No new cases were detected last Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, making this the fourth time in seven days with no new virus cases detected in Malta. There are currently no COVID-19 patients in hospital. Vaccination is currently open to any resident of Malta aged 16 and over. PN LEADERSHIP PAGE 1 The move comes ahead of a PN General Council in July, but there is no election in such a party council, because the par- ty statute mandates the term of the leadership positions till after each general election. It means that at the first General Council after a general elec- tion, the posts are vacated for a new party election campaign to be chosen or reconfirmed by all paid-up members. Several other younger candi- dates have been asked to ex- press an interest in taking over other established posts: such as secretary-general Francis Zammit Dimech, executive committee president Alex Perici Calascione, administra- tive council president Carm Mifsud Bonnici, and Gener- al Council president Censu Galea. All bar Perici Calas- cione served under the Fenech Adami and Gonzi administra- tion as ministers. Possible favourites for such posts include young lawyer Martina Caruana, Joe Grech, the president of the PN's youth organ, MEP candidate Roselyn Borg Knight, as well as Mark Anthony Sammut, former- ly president of the executive committee before resigning in protest at the Delia leadership. Despite the attempts from Grech's team to spring possi- ble contenders into action, it is a fact that Grech himself failed to move early on in 2020 upon his election, to convince Agius and Arrigo to step down. Arrigo is currently serving as chairman of Media.link, the party's media arm. He has al- ready told MaltaToday that he was "not glued to my chair".