Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had asked writer Frans Sammut to start a blog to put Caruana Galizia ‘in a bad light’, according to the deceased author’s son
Caruana Galizia family lawyers inform public inquiry they have Yorgen Fenech s mobile phone data
The public inquiry into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia continues after the Christmas recess
29 January 2021, 9:41am
by Matthew Agius
Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb just outside her Bidnija home on 16 October 2017
Yorgen Fenech s mobile phone data is in the hands of the lawyers representing Daphne Caruana Galizia s family, the public inquiry into the murder was told on Friday.
Lawyer Therese Comodini Cachia informed the inquiry board in Friday s session that the data was in their hands. The parte civile was given the data as part of the criminal proceedings against Fenech.
Updated 1.50pm
Judge Abigail Lofaro has been backed by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family, the government and two other judges who sit on an inquiry into the journalist’s assassination, one day after her husband was implicated in a property deal involving murder suspect Yorgen Fenech.
Reading a decree out in court on Monday morning, judge Lofaro said that she had only learnt of the matter on December 19 when her husband, Pierre Lofaro, received questions about it from
Times of Malta. The news report was published the following day.
She said she saw no grounds to recuse herself from the public inquiry, but asked for a declaration of trust in her integrity, impartiality and independence.
A government statement issued on Tuesday about a public inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia exposed its state of panic about proceedings there, political party ADPD said on Wednesday. The mafia state is showing its true colours through PM Robert Abela s brazen intimidation of the members that compose the same inquiry, the party said. It is clear that we have a puppet government and a puppet prime minister which are controlled by the interests of the same mafia state.
The party was reacting to a cryptically-worded government statement issued on Tuesday evening, in which it said that the board of inquiry would have to assume responsibility for its decisions and their consequences, now that it had taken it upon itself to extend the inquiry s deadline and its terms of reference.
Updated 7.30pm with Corinne Vella s statement
The government told the judges presiding the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder inquiry on Tuesday that once they had taken it upon themselves to extend the inquiry s deadline and its terms of reference, they must now assume responsibility for the consequences.
The inquiry was meant to be concluded in September but the prime minister had granted it a one-off extension to today, Tuesday.
But on Monday the judges said they needed more time to conclude their work, and they said the inquiry would therefore continue past the new deadline. They pointed out in particular they needed to know about the findings of data from electronic devices analysed by Europol which will become available in January.