[WATCH] Melvin Theuma in critical condition after attempted suicide – police

Melvin Theuma recovered in hospital after attempted suicide

The criminal associate of Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech, the middleman in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination, has been rushed to Mater Dei hospital after a serious act of alleged self-harm that could have been an attempted suicide.

Melvin Theuma, who turned State’s evidence to testify against Fenech, the alleged mastermind in assassination, was carried into an ambulance with police arriving on the scene at Triq is-Sirk in Swieqi.

Police said the first indications are that Theuma, found suffering from serious wounds, had harmed himself but it was not ruling out anything.

A hospital source informed MaltaToday that Theuma had presented with stab wounds down to trachea and vocal cords, and with multiple wounds to his abdomen.

Theuma was expected to continue his testimony in court tomorrow Wednesday, with the defence counter-examining him. The magistrate had ordered that recordings requested by the defence be exhibited in the compilation of evidence. Fenech’s lawyers set much store by the content of recordings which could have attacked the testimony of Theuma against the alleged mastermind.

A lawyer for Theuma informed police he was unable to make contact with his client. The police officer guarding the Theuma residence entered the house together with Theuma’s wife at the moment he was alerted by police, and found Theuma suffering from the wounds.

MaltaToday understands that Theuma was found suffering from wounds to his chest and his neck when he was taken to hospital. In a video obtained by this newspaper, the emergency doctor can be heard alerting Mater Dei of the kind of surgical intervention Theuma required.

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A magisterial inquiry has been launched. Inspectors Keith Arnaud and Kurt Zahra, who are investigating the Caruana Galizia assassination, were on site.

Theuma was granted a presidential pardon to turn State’s evidence in December 2019, when he was arrested on a money laundering charge and later confessed to his role in the assassination.

Theuma had contracted the three men arrested for the October 2017 assassination, brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, and Vincent Muscat, on behalf of Fenech, to carry out the hit on Caruana Galizia. 

He amassed a large collection of recorded conversations on his mobile phone, of exchanges he had with Fenech and other associates of his. The conversations revealed his knowledge of details of the police investigation into the assassination, knowledge of Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri’s association with Fenech, police collusion, and even advance notice of a pardon.