Police chief: State Advocate chose to renounce appeal over Schembri's phone data

Police commissioner Angelo Gafa’ said on Tuesday that a declaration in court that he would not appeal a court’s decision to grant Yorgen Fenech access to data from Keith Schembri’s phone, was made by the State Advocate.
The police chief when testifying in constitutional proceedings filed by Fenech who is claiming that his right to a fair hearing is being breached on account of the police non-disclosure of the full evidence in investigators’ hands.
Among that evidence is data from a mobile phone seized during a police search at the home of former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri who was targeted in money laundering investigations last year.

The phone in question is not the same device that went offline shortly before Schembri was arrested in late 2019 and which has never been retrieved since.
Fenech’s lawyers have long struggled to acquire access to that data in separate constitutional proceedings where they are seeking to get chief investigator Superintendent Keith Arnaud taken off the murder case.
But police authorities refused to hand over such data, saying that it was not relevant and formed part of an ongoing inquiry.
That was until Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, presiding...