Constantly Updated: Peter Caruana Galizia Testifies In His Wife’s Murder Case
Constantly updated
The three men accused of assassinating journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia are back in court this morning to hear the rest of the evidence the police have compiled against them.
The court case against George Degiorgio (Ic-Ciniz), his brother Alfred Degiorgio (Il-Fulu) and Vince Muscat (Il-Kohhu), finally started yesterday afternoon after weeks of delaying tactics from the defence team.
During yesterday’s testimony, police inspector Keith Arnaud confirmed that George Degiorgio was on a pleasure boat in the middle of the sea when he sent a fatal SMS to the device which had been attached to the bomb inside Caruana Galizia’s car.
He also confirmed that the Degiorgios purchased the SIM cards used inside the phone and the device back in November 2016 and activated them in August this year.
The device was planted inside Caruana Galizia’s rented car, which had last been used by her eldest son Matthew, at around 2am – 13 hours before her assassination.
Arnaud started off his testimony today by showing the court a bunch of photos taken from the vantage point in Bidnija where Alfred Degiorgio had allegedly been hiding – including of Caruana Galizia’s villa as seen from the vantage point and of a cigarette butt the police had found on the site.
The police found Caruana Galizia’s burned mobile phone on the site. Arnaud confirmed that forensic experts are examining the phone abroad.
Arnaud presents phone data to prove that the device which had been planted inside Caruana Galizia’s car was turned on at around 2am and remained switched on until the assassination.
George Degiorgio’s phone was briefly turned on 13th of October. On the day of the murder, it was turned on at around 6:45am and kept being picked up by different cell towers on Malta’s east coast, all facing the sea. It was switched off for good at around 3pm.
The SIM card inside the phone George Degiorgio had used to carry out the murder was once used by a third person but was eventually put up for sale again by Vodafone.
The police keep presenting technical evidence from the mobile phone records of George Degiorgio, from where they found the calls it had made to the mobile phone of his brother Alfred – who was stationed in Bidnija as a spotter. The spotter’s phone remained in Bidnija all night, indicating its user had slept on site that night.
On the afternoon of the assassination, Alfred Degiorgio made a brief 44 second call to George Degiorgio, who had been stationed out at sea. Moments later, he made another longer call to his brother – indicating that George Degiorgio had heard the explosion while he was out at sea.
The phone was then picked up from the Marsa cell tower, close to the ‘potato shed’ the Degiorgios had often hung out at. It matched with CCTV footage of Alfred Degiorgio’s cabin cruiser ‘Maya’ as it arrived in the port.
The location of the three suspects’ personal mobile phones kept matching perfectly with the location of the mobile phones used to carry out the assassination.
On the 13th October, the three phones were in the same location in St Paul’s Bay, where both Degiorgios live. On the 14th of October, all three secondary mobile phones were in Bidnija – in the exact same location as the personal phones of Alfred Degiorgio and Vincent Muscat.
On the day of the assassination, Alfred Degiorgio’s personal phone went off the grid at around 4am in Bidnija and was switched on again at 3:19pm, 20 minutes after the assassination.
Alfred Degiorgio’s personal phone location records show he had often visited Bidnija in the weeks before the assassination.
More analyses of the Grand Harbour revealed that George Degiorgio’s personal phone and the phone used to deliver the fatal SMS had moved in the exact same locations on the day of the murder – until the second phone was switched off for good at 3pm.
At the Marsa ‘potato shed’
The police presented all this evidence to inquiring magistrate Anthony Vella on 2nd December and received an arrest warrant for the three suspects. On 4th December, the police pounced. Police officers were sent to watch the suspects’ three houses, as well as to Vince Muscat’s second house in Siggiewi. Meanwhile, Arnaud led a police squad to the Marsa ‘potato shed’ where the three suspects were hanging out by themselves.
When he arrived on the scene, the two Degiorgios were lying down on the floor inside the shed to avoid capture, while Vincent Muscat was hiding a few metres away. Arnaud informed they were under arrest for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. At the potato shed, the police also found a blue Nokia phone with the battery and SIM card removed – which they later found out was the same phone that Alfred Degiorgio had used.
Police didn’t find George Degiorgio’s mobile phone, but the suspect had a mobile phone number written on the palm of his hand; he told police that the number belonged to his partner.
Arnaud asked the suspects whether they had keys to a closed room inside the potato shed where a TV and oven were switched on, but none of them answered. The three suspects remained on the scene as the police combed the potato shed for clues and DNA swabs. At one point, the police allowed the three suspects to smoke a cigarette outside the shed while they continued combing it.
A team of divers then searched the sea and found eight Nokia phones underwater – including Vincent Muscat’s personal mobile phones, two phones that had once been used by George Degiorgio and the substitute phones, a blue Nokia.
The police also searched Alfred Degiorgio’s car, which had been parked nearby, and took some unspecified items to a forensic team for examination. The cars of both brothers – a black Audi and a white Mercedes – as well as their two boats were then taken to the police compound for investigation.
Police took Alfred Degiorgio to his St Paul’s Bay house as they investigated it for clues.
Police arrested eight more people connected to the trio. On the first day of the interrogations, two of the men confirmed that they had often hung out at the potato shed with the suspects and that they had contacted George Degiorgio on his personal mobile phone. One of them confirmed that he had topped up George Degiorgio’s phone with €5 credit after Degiorgio called him to do so.
The three suspects were interrogated separately but all remained silent throughout and refused to call in a lawyer. Alfred Degiorgio and Vincent Muscat only spoke to give police their personal details, but George didn’t even do this much – and just brought out his ID card from his pocket.
The police confronted the suspects with all the evidence they had, but they remained silent throughout. Investigators asked all three of them straight out why they killed Daphne Caruana Galizia, but none of them answered.
After the interrogations, the police received confirmation from a foreign forensic team that the DNA on the cigarette butt that had been found on the Bidnija vantage point matched with Alfred Degiorgio.
On the day before the assassination, George Degiorgio had called a friend to say he was going fishing the next day. After the assassination, he called a friend to say he had “caught two big fish” but would give him more details later. He also sent a SMS to his partner to tell her: “Buy my a bottle of wine, my love”.
Suspects being kept in solitary confinement
The press was kicked out of the courtroom for the testimony of assistant prison director Maria Camilleri, with prosecuting lawyer Philip Galea Farrugia citing public security concerns.
When the press was allowed back in, the prosecution and defence were heard quarrelling over the living conditions the three suspects are being subjected to in prison.
Defence lawyer William Cuschieri questioned why they are being treated differently than other prisoners, arguing that they are innocent until proven guilty and that they hadn’t acted violently towards police officers when they were arrested.
He said Alfred Degiorgio has announced he will go on a hunger strike as of today in protest at his living conditions.
However, prosecution lawyer Philip Galea Farrugia cites a report on prison conditions by the European Convention of Human Rights which states that prisoners elsewhere are subjected to far worse conditions.
“Compared to how prisoners elsewhere are treated, the suspects are being privileged,” he said, while George Degorgio shook his head in disagreement. “Their cells are normal, their beds are normal and their living conditions are well within the parameters of their human rights.”
However, Cuschieri countered that he has seen the cells with his own eyes and that they “aren’t suitable for human beings”.
“They are being isolated as a form of punishment and the assistant director just confirmed that,” he said.
CID police officer testifies
Police officer Kurt Zahra, from the Criminal Investigations Department, takes to the stand to describe how he had been called to Bidnija following the investigation and had seen body parts scattered on the ground near the destroyed car.
Matthew Caruana Galizia, who was on site too, told him that he had been working on his laptop at home when he heard the explosion. Matthew Caruana Galizia got into an argument with a neighbour, Mario Vella, and smashed his phone on the ground after he saw Vella allegedly taking photos of the crime scene.
Another neighbour, Frans Sant, witnessed the entire scene as he was driving back home from Mosta. He told police that he first saw a small explosion with white smoke under the car and that the woman inside the car was in a state of panic. Soon after, a major explosion took place and the burning car rolled down the hill into a field.
Matthew Caruana Galizia told police that his mother had used the rental car the previous afternoon to drive down to Palazzo Parisio for a coffee, and that he and his father joined her later. Afterwards, Daphne and Peter Caruana Galizia drove back home together while Matthew used the rental car to drive to Exiles. He returned home at around 6:30pm.
On 21 October, the Prime Minister announced a €1 million reward for people with information on the assassination, following which the police set up an operations room with an ad hoc telephone and an ad hoc email that are still active.
Mario Fenech, the man who had rented the Peugeot 108 to Caruana Galizia, confirmed that the journalist had been renting a car since February but switched to the Peugeot in June as part of a five-year car rental contract.
Police spoke to mechanic David Fenech, who said that he had carried out repairs on Caruana Galizia’s rented car in September after it was involved in a bumper-to-bumper accident a few months earlier. The car rental company confirmed it had spare keys of the car, but that these were in a room constantly monitored by CCTV cameras.
Police spoke to a number of people who phoned 112 after hearing or witnessing the explosion, as well as to Caruana Galizia’s husband and three sons. Peter Caruana Galizia confirmed that his wife had no set routine and that she used to work from several places with a WI-FI connection. Matthew Caruana Galizia said that he had arrived in Malta 15 days ago and that he had been working with his mother on his laptop before she left the house to run some errands.
Zahra was part of the police squad which had carried out the major raid on the Marsa potato shed. Police didn’t ask the suspects any questions on the spot, except to ask them if they had keys for a spare room inside the potato shed.
Close to Vincent Muscat’s hiding spot, police found Alfred Degiorgio’s broken mobile phone.
During the interrogation, the suspects were asked for a DNA sample; the two Degiorgios complied, but Vincent Muscat refused.
During interrogations, Alfred Degorgio responded to every question with “Im not answering”, Vincent Muscat gave his personal details but stayed silent throughout, while George did not utter a single word at all.
Peter Caruana Galizia testifies
Peter Caruana Galizia describes how he, Daphne and Matthew had met up at Palazzo Parisio the previous afternoon. He and Daphne then went to Floriana to visit one of their sons [Andrew] and, while there, visited a garden. Matthew was supposed to join them but decided to go swimming at Exiles instead.
Peter didn’t see Daphne the next day. While he was at work in Valletta, at around 3pm, Andrew entered his office “looking white as a sheet” and told him to drop everything and go to Bidnija.
“I could see police officers and fire engines everywhere. As I parked my car, inspector Kurt Zahra approached me. I asked him whether Daphne had died and he responded that she had.”
Peter Caruana Galizia confirmed his wife had recently started parking her car in the garage in the months before her death, but “for some reason” Matthew decided to park it outside that day.
On the same day of the murder, Peter, Matthew and Daphne’s sister Corinne Vella went to court to challenge the appointment of Consuelo Scerri Herrera as the inquiring magistrate. He said that Scerri Herrera had summoned economy minister Chris Cardona, OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and OPM official Neville Gafa but didn’t get a chance to speak to them.
He said that his wife preferred working late at night and didn’t like leaving the house in the morning. On the day of the assassination, she had an appointment at the HSBC headquarters due to problems with her bank account caused by the garnishee order, which Chris Cardona had slapped on her.
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