Former Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta passed sensitive information on the Daphne Caruana Galizia investigation and other crucial details, including Vince Muscat’s pardon request, to murder suspect Yorgen Fenech, the middleman has revealed.

Speaking in the Police’s case against Fenech following questioning from Caruana Galizia family lawyer Jason Azzopardi, Melvin Theuma said:

“Yorgen Fenech said he got the information of Vince Muscat asking for a pardon in exchange of information to investigators and other things from Keith Schembri and Silvio Valletta. It’s in the recordings.”

The former Deputy Police Commissioner, who in the recordings is referred to as “Valletta l-oħxon”, was leading the case into the assassination until he was forcibly removed by court order.

He was the one who set up unprecedented briefings on the investigation with former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his chief of staff Keith Schembri. The meetings continued well after his removal, with Lead Homicide Inspector Keith Arnaud briefing the pair as recently as October 2019.

Valletta has been revealed to have an intimate relationship with Fenech, going abroad with him one at least two occasions. Meanwhile, there is a video of Valletta “fooling around” in Fenech’s Rolls Royce.

His wife, Justyne Caruana, was made to resign as Gozo Minister following the reveal. However, she has stayed on as an MP.

The first half of today’s sitting (which is still underway) mostly focused on a recording between Theuma and Fenech, taken sometime close to the 22nd of any given month in the second half of 2018.  The recording deals with a covert million-Euro bail request for the three men charged with carrying out the murder.

In a unique twist, while Theuma could not say for certain the date of the recording, he gave some unique insight into when it could have been.

“One time, I tried to call you [Jason Azzopardi] because I wanted to speak to you about the big case. You told me I was abroad and to call Karol Aquilina. My phone ran out of battery, and I decided not to continue.”

“The day I heard Vince Muscat was going to get a pardon, I wanted to go and get one.”