Judge dismayed over lawyers' ‘antics’ in Caruana Galizia murder case

The Criminal Court judge who will preside Yorgen Fenech’s trial by jury over the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia has expressed great dismay over the antics employed outside the courtroom by lawyers on both sides.

She warned that if this continued, she would order the proceedings to be heard behind closed doors. The warning came in a sitting during which she ordered Jason Azzopardi, who is representing the Caruana Galizia family as parte civile, to delete Facebook posts deemed prejudicial to the case.

During a sitting on Thursday before Madame Justice Edwina Grima called Azzopardi to the witness stand. The judge informed Azzopardi that she had ordered that he be notified with a note filed by the defence, in which the court was asked to take action against the lawyer over statements he had made in an interview with Lovin Malta.

The defence also told the court that Azzopardi had been making statements about the defendant on his Facebook page.

While under oath, Azzopardi was asked about three Facebook posts.

He confirmed that he had authored the posts in question, but denied the suggestion that the last one had been uploaded last week.

The judge ordered the lawyer to stop reading out the whole post and asked him to confirm whether they were still online, adding that if so, she was ordering him to delete them.

“I confirm on oath every word [I wrote], but what I find worrying is that the note indicates that I have violated the decree you issued on Friday 30 August,” he said.

But when Azzopardi alleged he had been discriminated against, the court interrupted him, reminding him of a previous court order banning the parties from making any reference to Fenech’s request for a presidential pardon.

“Orders aren’t only binding in court,” said the judge, adding she was “very unhappy with both parties."

The judge warned that she would have to start holding hearings in this case behind closed doors, if these incidents were to continue.

Fenech’s lawyer Charles Mercieca alleged that the breach had taken place a day after the order, leading the court to remark that “everyone is trying to mislead the court.”

The lawyers continued to bicker loudly, talking over the judge, who then ordered all the lawyers out of the courtroom and into her chambers.

Emerging around 20 minutes later, the judge noted the application which requested the interview and a number of Facebook posts put up by Jason Azzopardi be taken down.

The judge ordered Azzopardi to take down his posts and that “no party make any reference in public to the guilt or otherwise of the accused, who is today still presumed innocent and this in order to avoid stultifying the judicial process.”

The judge also ordered the journalists in the courtroom not to reproduce the contents of the posts that Azzopardi had read out on the witness stand, and reminded all that the publication ban on the contents of the acts of this case had been put in place to avoid compromising the trial by jury.

After sending the acts of the case back to the court of magistrates in order for court expert Martin Bajada to testify and complete tasks that he had been given by the Criminal Court, the sitting was adjourned to 18 October.