The family of two men charged with assassinating journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia sent the murder’s middleman to get a medical marijuana sellers license from an associate close to Chris Cardona who worked in his Economy Ministry.

Following questioning by Caruana Galizia family lawyer Jason Azzopardi, Melvin Theuma revealed in court that while the men were in prison, the Degiorgios’ brother Mario, instructed Theuma to meet with an individual in San Gwann to discuss the family potentially getting a license to sell medical marijuana.

This happened in 2019, well after the people were charged with murder and were locked up in Corradino Correctional facility.

The person, a certain ‘Mario’, had strong connections with the Economy Ministry, Theuma said, but could not remember the person’s full name.

The Degiorgios have been linked to Cardona in the past, having even attended private parties together.

Today’s sitting, which saw Theuma face cross-examination in the case against the three men charged with the crime, Alfred Degiorgio, his brother George, and Vince Muscat, also revealed other curious links between Cardona and the alleged killers.

The daughter of one of the men, Alfred, was handed a job at Chris Cardona’s Economy Ministry just months before the murder.

Azzopardi revealed that the woman was handed the job sometime in the summer of 2017. The assassination was planned and confirmed before and after the early June general election in 2017.

Degiorgio was the primary contact for middleman Melvin Theuma, having also arranged the price for the murder.

It is still unclear whether Degiorgio’s daughter is still employed and what her position was.

Cardona suspended himself as Economy Minister during the political crisis caused by Yorgen Fenech’s arrest, which saw him become the victim of an alleged frame-up attempt from Fenech and Keith Schembri.

He was reinstated shortly afterwards but was eventually left out of Prime Minister Robert Abela’s Cabinet. It seems that Cardona is now looking to even step down as an MP, and is rumoured to be floating a job within the pharmaceutical industry.