Tempers flared inside the Courtroom as Johann Cremona, Yorgen Fenech’s former business associate, accused Fenech’s defence lawyer Charles Mercieca of maintaining contact with former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, producing a screenshot in open court that he said showed a selfie Mercieca had sent to Schembri.The confrontation came during the continued cross-examination of Cremona, who is now on his fourth day on the witness stand. In the three previous sessions, he detailed his relationship with murder middleman Melvin Theuma.Cremona’s accusation of hidden communicate between the defence lawyer and Schembri was uttered after a particular recording was played to the court on screen. However, Judge Edwina Grima has barred the media from reporting its contents.Cremona then turned to Mercieca directly, saying, “I will show you who communicated with Keith Schembri,” and accusing him of having sent Schembri a “best wishes” message accompanied by a selfie.“I am fed up! This is too much,” Cremona said, brandishing the screenshot before handing a copy to the judge, who urged him to calm down. Asked where he had obtained it, Cremona said Schembri had sent it to him directly.He went on to allege that Fenech’s defence lawyers Mercieca and Gianluca Caruana Curran had met up with Schembri at his office, near the Turkish embassy, on the eve of Schembri’s 2020 testimony, telling the court, “Let him tell you about it. You think you’re going to break me. You’re mistaken.” Cremona also claimed a further person in the photograph was someone he identified as “Ruben Ta’ Fonzu.”“You think you’re going to bring me down? With all of Malta behind you, you still haven’t got a chance. Madam Judge, I’ve had enough,” Cremona said. “While his client is in prison, he’s sending him messages. Let’s not have anyone pretending to be a saint,” the Witness continued, referring to the lawyer. Judge Grima warned Cremona to calm down or risk being held in contempt of court. When Mercieca asked to see the photograph, given that it seemingly included him, the judge intervened sharply: “Dr Mercieca, I don’t want to see you laughing. This is no laughing matter.”Judge Grima ultimately appointed court expert Martin Bajada to examine the disputed document. Mercieca objected, arguing that court rules did not permit such material to be produced in open court. Cremona pushed back, saying, “My recordings were spread all over Malta,” and maintaining that the messages in the screenshot had been sent to him by Schembri himself.Cremona further alleged that sections of the media had been paid to “damage” him.After the jurors and witness were dismissed, Mercieca offered his own account of the photograph, saying that “from a quick glance” it appeared to be an old picture of him from before he had “even grown a beard,” taken by someone known to the court and sent on to Schembri. After Judge Grima left the courtroom, outbursts from both sides seemed to continue the Hall, with accusations of “disgrace” exchanged between them.The outburst overshadowed what had otherwise been a morning of testimony centred on Schembri’s proximity to the case. Earlier in the sitting, Cremona confirmed to Judge Grima that he believed Schembri “was involved in everything,” after being pressed on why he exchanged messages with the former chief of staff following the start of police questioning.He maintained Schembri had only contacted him because he could not reach Fenech directly, and that he turned to Schembri simply because he “had nobody else to talk to” as the pressure of the investigation intensified. He also denied ever discussing his planned testimony with Schembri, telling the court there had been no court order preventing them from speaking.The sitting also featured further playback of Theuma’s secret recordings, including one in which he is heard telling Cremona he intended to make then-prime minister Joseph Muscat “shit himself” in parliament by pushing then-opposition leader Simon Busuttil to raise questions about a presidential pardon.In another, Theuma is heard shouting for the Degiorgio brothers to be given “a bag of cash each” so they could flee, after a meeting involving Kenneth Camilleri, a former security official at the Office of the Prime Minister.Throughout the day, Cremona maintained the position he has held since first taking the stand: that his comments to Theuma in these recordings were largely exaggerated or invented in an effort to calm an increasingly anxious man, whom he said had made his life a misery for over a year.Cross-examination is set to continue, with the contents of the recording and messages shown on screen remaining under the court’s reporting restriction.•