Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546198
YORGEN FENECH TRIAL SUNDAY • 16 AUGUST 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 trial as Jurors, accompanied by the judge, lawyers, the accused and key witnesses visit the places linked to the planning and execution of Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder The prison security car with Yorgen Fenech inside arriving at Castille Square in Valletta during a site visit to the Office of the Prime Minister on Saturday (Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday) Melvin Theuma ends testimony, defence accuses him of lying to protect Keith Schembri MELVIN Theuma's lengthy testimony came to an end on Saturday after the defence spent the final afternoon of his cross-examination picking apart his evidence. Theuma was accused of lying to protect himself and keep Keith Schembri out of the murder case. The defence kept suggest- ing that Theuma struck a deal with Schembri to keep the for- mer chief of staff's name out of the murder case and, in re- turn, receive a pardon. "What if I put it to you that you struck a deal with Keith Schembri; that you would get the pardon as long as you kept his name out of it?" defence lawyer Giannella de Marco asked. Theuma flatly denied it. Theuma has consistently testified throughout that he met Keith Schembri at Castille only once to discuss a gov- ernment job he had allegedly been promised. But a visitor record produced by De Mar- co appeared to show Theuma entering Castille for a second time, on 2 March 2017—the day after the meeting during which he had been given the infamous phantom job and taken the photograph with Schembri. The record listed a "person- al visit to Craus", with Theu- ma entering at 12:51pm and leaving at 3:30pm. "You were caught out in your own lie," De Marco told him. Theuma dug his heels in, in- sisting the record was wrong and challenging the court to compare the signature on the visitor slip with his own. "I swear it's not true," he said. The issue was later put to him by a juror, who asked whether he remembered vis- iting Castille twice. "I went once. I keep saying I went once," Theuma replied. De Marco also tried to knock down Theuma's claims that he had been overcome with remorse following Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder. She played recordings made in November 2017, shortly after the journalist's assassina- tion, in which Theuma could be heard discussing decidedly mundane matters, including a wall, a field, a "Nationalist ar- chitect" and the attractiveness of a Transport Malta employ- ee. "You don't exactly sound like a man consumed by re- morse," De Marco told him. She suggested Theuma's re- morse had only set in once he realised the police were clos- ing in. Theuma insisted he was remorseful for the murder. When De Marco pressed him over his decision to hug one of Caruana Galizia's sons in court while refusing to hand over money being sought by the family, Theuma became emotional. He spoke of his longstanding friendship with the Fenech family and said he could not understand why Yorgen Fenech had "picked me to do this job". "I can't take it anymore," he told the court. "I did it for him." ĦALEY XUEREB hxuereb@mediatoday.com.mt