Updated | Magistrate requests call logs of Joseph Muscat, Adrian Delia, Chris Cardona

The magistrate carrying out the inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia has requested the telephone logs of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Opposition leader Adrian Delia and Economy Minister Chris Cardona as part of his ongoing investigation.

Sources told MaltaToday the request was made a few weeks ago by Magistrate Anthony Vella.

But this newspaper is informed that the telephone logs have not yet been provided, as a number of security issues could be raised over releasing the entire telephone logs of the Prime Minister.

The logs will contain sensitive information on Muscat’s telephone contacts, which also include conversations with various international leaders.

Government sources said that they were concerned that the magistrate and his team’s access to the sensitive logs was debatable in view of the magistrate’s decision not to act quicker on securing access to Caruana Galizia’s last used laptop.

“He acceded to the Caruana Galizias’ wishes to deny him access to her laptop, and the family objected to having papers and documents searched in the family house,” the source told MaltaToday.

While the police had filed a judicial request to the magistrate to secure access to the last used laptop by the journalist, it was only in late April that a friend of the family voluntarily passed on two laptops belonging to Caruana Galizia to the German federal police.

The laptops reportedly contain the last correspondence sent by Caruana Galizia, both personal and work-related.

Caruana Galizia’s son, Matthew, has repeatedly alleged that the murder of his mother was politically-motivated. In April, the Daphne Project, an international consortium of newspapers, reported that economy minister Chris Cardona had been witnessed speaking to one of the men arrested for carrying out the bomb attack that killed the journalist. Cardona was said to have been seen speaking to Alfred Degiorgio ‘il-Fulu’ at the Ferdinand bar in Siggiewi both before and after the murder. Cardona had said he doesn’t recall speaking to any of the three men accused of the murder.

Cardona had sued Caruana Galizia for libel after the journalist claimed a witness had seen the minister inside a German brothel. Geolocation data for Cardona’s mobile phone was deposited in court as evidence requested by the defence in the libel suit, but only recently the civil court struck the case off when the defence was unable to summon Caruana Galizia’s heirs to testify. Cardona has three months to file an official request to have the case reinstated and continued.

Adrian Delia's reaction

In a reaction to the report in this newspaper, Delia said he had no problem with his call logs being handed over to the magistrate for investigation.

“I will not only cooperate fully but if there are any permissions or waivers required from me I will gladly sign anything that grants full consent for investigators to look at every single call, SMS or other forms of communication," he said, "I won’t comment on the others, but when it comes to me I will gladly grant full access.”