Malta’s former Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar allegedly told Melvin Theuma, the middleman-turned-state-witness in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination, which police departments had files on him.

Well-informed sources have suggested that a set of Theuma’s recordings, which are yet to be played in open, detail conversations between Theuma and his confidante Johann Cremona, who is also the business partner of main suspect Yorgen Fenech.

Theuma allegedly told Cremona that Cutajar informed him that the Economic Crimes Unit, Homicide, Interpol, and Europol all had files on him. The tape is believed to have been recorded sometime during the summer of 2019. 

However, all three men have insisted in court that Theuma would regularly overstate his relationship with Cutajar. Theuma said he did so to show Fenech he too had connections in the police force and government.

Cutajar’s links to the case do no stop here. He allegedly features “hundreds” of times in Theuma’s recordings and is also subject to allegations over accepting a bribe from Theuma and leaking information on the case.

The new detail is the latest in a long line of allegations regarding major leaks from the police investigation.

Recorded conversations between Theuma and Fenech have revealed that the pair were well-informed on confidential details from critical players like former Deputy Police Commissioner Silvio Valletta, which could also implicate disgraced former Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.

These included the imminent arrests of the three men charged with carrying out the murder, the pardon request of one of those men, Vince Muscat, and their own arrests in November 2019.

The new recordings form part of a cache of tapes recently discovered on devices seized by police upon Theuma’s arrest in November 2019. Every device was handed over the Europol for extraction. However, court experts have said that some files were corrupted while being forensically transferred to each interested party in the case.

Beyond allegations, there is circumstantial evidence heavily linking Cutajar to Brincat and potential criminal activity. Mobile phone data has confirmed that Cutajar contacted Brincat the day before the latter was set to testify in the case against Fenech.

The former police commissioner is also under investigation for leaking details in the case. He has so far confirmed that he met with Brincat to inquire about potential recordings, without informing the investigation beforehand. Brincat has revealed that he immediately informed Theuma that the police were aware of the tapes following the meeting.

Cutajar remains under criminal investigation. Cutajar was removed from his post as Police Commissioner earlier this year. However, he was present during interrogations of several key figures in the case, including Theuma, in November 2019. He was also involved in negotiations for Theuma’s pardon, along with then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and then-Attorney General Peter Grech.

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