Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1545828
YORGEN FENECH TRIAL SUNDAY • 12 JULY 2026 | maltatoday Yorgen Fenech's trial by jury Anna Calleja is a Maltese visual artist who works across figurative her usual studio practice, capturing the immediacy of the Yorgen Cross examination of Keith Arnaud: Where are Keith Schembri's laptop and phone? Defence seeks Keith Schembri phone data, Daphne Caruana Galizia's unredacted emails YORGEN Fenech's defence lawyers sought access to Keith Schembri's phone re- cords and Daphne Caruana Galizia's unredacted emails, as the trial by jury continued on Saturday. Yesterday's sitting shifted the focus of Yorgen Fenech's murder trial from the bomb scene to the vast digital in- vestigation that followed the assassination. The defence sought to prise open years of electronic evidence gathered by investigators. Fenech is on trial on charg- es that he masterminded the murder. He is pleading not guilty. On the 10 day of the trial, ju- rors heard how investigators painstakingly reconstructed the journalist's digital life af- ter the bomb destroyed her mobile phone. During cross-examination, defence lawyers sought fo- rensic extractions from Keith Schembri's mobile phones, call records linked to sever- al figures mentioned in the murder, and access to Caru- ana Galizia's complete, unre- dacted email archive. Schembri's phones in the spotlight Much of the afternoon cen- tred on former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri with defence lawyer Giannella de Marco asking the court to exhibit the 2020 forensic ex- traction of Schembri's two iPhones, referred to in court as KS1 and KS2. The phones were cloned using updated forensic software and made available for various investi- gations. She then widened her re- quest, asking for the 2018 and 2020 forensic extractions and call profiles linked to Schem- bri's devices, as well as phone records relating to Kenneth Camilleri, a former securi- ty official at the Office of the Prime Minister, and business- man Johann Cremona, who knew self-confessed middle- man Melvin Theuma. De Marco also sought call profiles for Theuma's phones, forensic extractions relating to former Police Commis- sioner Lawrence Cutajar and material linked to Edgar Brin- cat, known as Il-Ġojja, gath- ered during the original mur- der inquiry and subsequent investigation into alleged leaks from the case. She later challenged court-appointed IT expert Martin Bajada to establish how many times Schembri and former minister Chris Cardona appeared across more than 29,000 pages of emails extracted from Caru- ana Galizia's email accounts. Bajada replied that such a search could be carried out, but not at the click of a but- ton, given the sheer volume of material. Battle over Daphne's emails The courtroom then be- came the stage for a lengthy legal wrangle over emails re- covered from Caruana Gali- zia's accounts. The defence argued that if prosecutors intended to rely on those emails, jurors should be shown the original, unre- dacted versions rather than copies edited to protect con- fidential journalistic sources. Defence lawyer Charles Mercieca argued that unless the people who wrote those emails testified, the corre- spondence could establish only that communication took place; not that the claims contained within them were true. Judge Edwina Grima noted that prosecutors could not simply isolate a handful of emails without laying the nec- essary evidential groundwork. She pointed out that Mat- thew Caruana Galizia is ex- pected to testify later in the proceedings and may be ques- tioned about the material. The judge ultimately ruled that if prosecutors failed to produce witnesses capable of authenticating the emails, she would instruct jurors to disre- gard their contents. ĦALEY XUEREB hxuereb@mediatoday.com.mt