Johann Cremona has hung over the police’s case against Yorgen Fenech over the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia like a shroud. He’s a crucial link between Fenech and middleman-turned-state-witness Melvin Theuma who has intimate knowledge of the plot and its potentially numerous participants.

This Monday at 10am, he is finally testifying in open court. Lovin Malta will be following the sitting live. However, with so many twists and turns since the case started in December 2019, here’s a brief rundown on how Cremona is linked to the case.

Cremona is a director of gaming company Bestplay and Oracle Gaming, which was part of Fenech’s Tumas Group business empire. He’s also a close confidante of Theuma.

Theuma has told the court several times that he would visit Cremona almost daily to confide in him over the case and unload the significant pressure he felt after the murder took place.

Secret recordings played in court have revealed that Cremona was the one to inform Fenech of Theuma’s secret tapes.

Meanwhile, Theuma has testified that Cremona was the one to set up the infamous meeting with former OPM Security Guard Kenneth ‘From Castille’ Camilleri. During that meeting, Camilleri detailed a bailout plan for the three men charged with the murder of Caruana Galizia.

Camilleri visited Theuma at Cremona’s garage the next day. There he brought out a piece of paper with three mobile numbers written on it, one of which was his [Theuma’s] old mobile number.

“I told him it was my number and he said ’then you are the mastermind’,” Theuma told the court.

The day after that, Theuma was at a restaurant when Cremona turned up and told him that Camilleri wanted to meet him in Zejtun. Theuma said that he did not go as he feared for his life.

Theuma has told the court that he does not know where Camilleri got this information. However, he believes it could be former Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, given Fenech’s regular references to him.

Cremona’s links to the case do not end here. He’s also been referenced to several sensational claims Theuma has made in court over Labour Party Deputy Party Leader Chris Cardona.

Under questioning from lawyer Jason Azzopardi over an alleged €350,000 fee for the murder revealed in secret recordings, Theuma told the court that he was told Cardona had a financial relationship to suspected triggerman Alfred Degiorgio via a middleman “whose name began with ‘B’”.

Theuma – who was given a Presidential pardon by then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat – said he knows this from conversations he had with main suspect Yorgen Fenech and their mutual friend Johann Cremona.

He said under oath that either Fenech or Cremona had once shown him a photo of this middleman, as have the police during questioning.

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