Are the Police and Prosecution in Yorgen Fenech’s case in serious trouble?

Malta Today ran a story on Saturday January 16, 2021 about a Dutchman who is reported to have recorded Melvin Theuma between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019,  while the former was living in Malta. Lovin Malta joined the chorus to give us another exclusive story about these recordings.

It is an open secret that Lovin Malta is behind the police and supports the claim that Yorgen Fenech is the mastermind in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Yet, its article revealed anecdotes that demonstrate that all is not well on the prosecution side.

First of all, Lovin Malta states that, and I here quote: “EXCLUSIVE: Hunt Is On For Fresh Recordings Where Melvin Theuma Shares Fears Of Fenech And Schembri Murdering Him”. This title suggests that there is a hunt or better a rivalry between the police and the defence lawyers as to who is going be the first to obtain this information. This piece of information has been repeated by The Times in an article published today on the same subject.

Why should there be such a hunt or rivalry? Is the police not duty bound to present all evidence it unearths? Is Lovin Malta implying that the police are failing in its duty to follow such basic principles, known as the principle of discovery? But then there is more in this article of Lovin Malta which should be scrutinized.

According to Malta Today, these recording were made well before Yorgen Fenech’s arrest. This has now been confirmed in an article published today in the Times of Malta. What all these  three articles concur with, is the fact that Melvin Theuma got so interested in this young Dutchman. According to Lovin Malta, Theuma was interested in getting the young Dutchman’s help to “gain access to a Tumas Group email address linked to Fenech and his uncle Ray through a phishing attempt“.

This explains why Melvin Theuma was so keen on this young Dutchman who, at the time, was still in his teens. What is perfectly clear though is that this young man is a professional conman. This is how he has been depicted by Malta Today and the Times of Malta. But it seems that there is more. He is also computer savvy. Already, as a schoolboy he showed particular intelligence in computing and recording and other technical devices and got into trouble. This was the reason why Melvin Theuma became interested in him and started to confide in him and not someone closer to home. But the real question that should be asked is whether there is a connection between the Melvin Theuma’s recordings and the then teenager? In other words, did this teenager, who is described as a conman and wizard by Lovin Malta and the Times, help Melvin Theuma in putting together his famous recordings originally in police hands?

If this is so, the police and the prosecution are in serious trouble. In part, this is now being confirmed by the Times of Malta. In today’s edition, the Times gives us the name of this person who allegedly recorded Melvin Theuma. His name is Julian Hofstra. He is said to be 21 years old and the Times described him as a convicted fraudster.

The story of the Times gives us more details about what has happened. The way how this story is written, it is clear that the Times wants to discredit one of the defence lawyers, Charles Mercieca.

The irony of it all is that the Times of Malta obtained all this information from the police. The Times of Malta tells us that Charles Mercieca had been called to the depot. The Times tells us that inspector Elton Taliana is being suspected as the person who passed on the information about Hofstra to Dr. Charles Mercieca.

The natural question that one needs to ask here is the following. How did The Times of Malta get to know about all these details including that Dr. Charles Mercieca was called to the depot for interrogation? I wish to ask another question. Was Dr. Charles Mercieca arrested as falsely reported by the Catholic bishops’ media? Is he being investigated for any wrong doings? What I have noticed in the article of The Times is that there is no such information about these important points. What I can concluded is that the Police is selective to whom it passes information about such a sensitive case as the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

If Charles Mercieca is being investigated or has been put under arrest, this would have been clearly stated by the Times of Malta. But no such thing has taken place. Else we would have known.

Therefore, why was one of the defence lawyers of such a high profile case called at the depot for an interrogation? Is this not an act of intimidation by the police against one of the principal lawyers in this case? These sort of tactics happen only in states run by dictators. I don’t remember any criminal case, at least, in recent history, where a criminal lawyer in Malta, defending a presumed murderer, ended up in the depot being asked questions by the police on a case that he is defending. This is definitely not on.

This is a clear sign that the police are being caught on the wrong foot in this case and the police reaction does not augur well to our democracy.