Malta Police have declined to comment on extraordinary testimony from the Yorgen Fenech murder trial. Scene-of-crime officers revealed that during a November 2019 search, investigators allowed suspect Keith Schembri to decide which electronic devices would be seized.
The Search That Raised Red Flags
On November 26, 2019, when officers arrived at Schembri's Mellieħa residence armed with a magistrate-signed warrant, they received explicit instructions from Assistant Commissioner Keith Arnaud, the lead investigating officer: only seize devices that Schembri himself "flagged" or "indicated."
Scene-of-crime officers Michelle Camilleri and Mario Azzopardi testified before jurors that the directive represented a significant departure from established practice. Police sergeant Mario Azzopardi was unequivocal: "We never conduct searches that way."
The limited haul ultimately included a Dell laptop from the living room, two MacBook Airs belonging to Schembri's daughters, an Asus tablet from a bedside table, and an iPad from the main bedroom. Court-presented photographs revealed at least two mobile phones visible during the search but deliberately left behind because the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat did not point them out to investigators.
Why This Matters
Standard procedure breached: The selective approach stands in stark contrast to Malta's standard search warrant procedures, which empower police to seize anything on premises if they have reasonable grounds to believe it constitutes evidence of an offense and its seizure is necessary to prevent concealment, loss, damage, alteration, or destruction. Police sergeant Azzopardi testified that such suspect-guided seizures are "never conducted that way" in Malta.
Evidence potentially lost: At least two visible mobile phones were left behind because Schembri did not "indicate" them to officers, raising questions about what evidence may have been missed.
Critical device missing: Schembri's personal phone, active until shortly before his arrest, was never recovered despite potentially containing key evidence in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination investigation—the murder of the investigative journalist whose 2017 car bomb assassination drew international condemnation and exposed corruption at Malta's highest levels.
Accountability gap: International standards require comprehensive seizure of all relevant devices, not selective collection guided by the suspect. The Malta Police Force has offered no explanation for the unusual search methodology.
What International Standards Require
Organizations including INTERPOL and Europol have established clear guidelines for digital evidence collection in serious criminal investigations. The protocols emphasize comprehensive identification and collection of all relevant electronic and digital evidence, not a curated selection determined by the person under investigation.
International best practices mandate thorough planning for search and seizure operations, proper crime scene documentation, preservation of data integrity through forensic copying, and deployment of trained digital forensic experts. The guidelines stress that digital evidence is fragile and easily altered, damaged, or destroyed, requiring meticulous handling from the moment of collection.
The Malta Police Forensic Science Laboratory operates under ISO 17025 certification and maintains membership in the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI), suggesting adherence to rigorous standards during the laboratory analysis phase. However, the Fenech trial testimony indicates that initial search and seizure practices may not align with international protocols for securing potential digital evidence effectively.
One examined phone in the Caruana Galizia investigation had been restored to factory settings before forensic analysis, severely hampering data recovery efforts. In another related case, no electronic devices were seized from a former Deputy Police Commissioner under investigation, with authorities collecting only call logs.
The Disappearing Phone
Perhaps the most consequential gap in the evidence collection involves Schembri's personal mobile phone. The former government chief of staff claimed to have "lost" the device before his November 2019 arrest—an explanation that raised questions given technical evidence showed the phone remained active until shortly before his arrest.
Despite this technical evidence, Malta Police made no documented attempts to clone the device remotely or access its contents before it vanished, potentially taking with it communications that could have illuminated Schembri's role in the events surrounding Caruana Galizia's assassination.
Schembri currently faces separate charges for perjury and breaches of the Official Secrets Act. Prosecutors in that parallel case have detailed allegations that he informed Fenech that one of the hitmen, Vince Muscat, was cooperating with investigators—a disclosure that would represent a severe breach of investigative confidentiality.
Testimony and Counter-Testimony
Taking the witness stand in the Fenech trial, Schembri denied claims by the accused businessman that he desired Caruana Galizia's death or leaked investigative details to him. He also refuted allegations of business dealings with Fenech, despite their previously documented close relationship, and insisted he possessed no inside knowledge of the murder investigation.
Yorgen Fenech, facing trial for masterminding the journalist's October 2017 car bomb assassination, has implicated Schembri in multiple ways. Fenech alleges that Schembri promised him a presidential pardon following his arrest and even drafted a "script" designed to falsely accuse former minister Chris Cardona of orchestrating the murder.
The Caruana Galizia family has acknowledged the allegations swirling around both Schembri and Cardona but noted that no sufficient evidence has been presented in court to demonstrate they paid for the assassination. Both men were arrested and questioned in November 2019 but subsequently released without murder-related charges.
The Accountability Question
The trial continues to expose procedural irregularities that have characterized Malta's handling of the Caruana Galizia case from its earliest stages. Seven years after the journalist's assassination shocked the island and drew international condemnation, questions persist about whether investigative shortcuts compromised the evidence-gathering process.
The testimony raises questions about whether searches involving politically connected individuals follow the same protocols applied to ordinary residents. For residents and institutions following the protracted Caruana Galizia murder proceedings, the testimony underscores persistent concerns about whether all available evidence was properly secured during the critical early stages of the investigation.
The case carries implications beyond a single search. Malta's legal framework theoretically provides robust protections: magistrate-signed warrants are typically required for home searches, copies must be provided to occupants, and execution after sunset requires special authorization. Yet the testimony suggests procedural safeguards can be undermined when investigators deviate from standard practice without apparent oversight or accountability.
The police force's refusal to comment on the search methodology leaves residents without official explanation for why standard protocols were apparently abandoned. The silence is particularly conspicuous given that Assistant Commissioner Arnaud's directive to allow suspect-guided device selection has now been publicly characterized by his own officers as improper.
For Malta's international reputation and domestic confidence in law enforcement institutions, the testimony emerging from the Fenech trial represents more than historical interest. It illustrates gaps between written procedures and actual practice when investigating individuals connected to the highest levels of government—a pattern that resonates beyond any single case.
The trial is expected to continue for several more months, with additional witnesses scheduled to testify about the investigation's conduct and the relationships among key figures. Whether Malta Police will eventually address the procedural questions now on the public record remains unclear.
