Chris Cardona files objection against use of phone location records to prove where he was on the night of January 30

The Minister for the Economy, Chris Cardona, this morning filed an objection – on the final day permissible at law – to my request to the Court for an order to the mobile telephony companies to preserve evidence showing, through his phone TAP records, where he was on the night of January 30.

I know for a fact, because a man I know was right there at the same time and looking directly at Cardona and his person of trust Joe Gerada, that they were at the FKK Acapulco in Velbert, Germany.

Cardona and his person of trust are claiming that they were in their hotel room and in the hotel neighbourhood. Cardona has also spoken about his proof that he was in the hotel: a minibar bill.

If Cardona and Gerada really wanted to prove that they were not at the FKK Acapulco, but in the town where their hotel is located, then they would have no objection to an order by the Court for the preservation of their phone TAP records. On the contrary, they would welcome this creative and incontrovertible manner of proving their whereabouts.

But they have objected. And they have done so because they were at the FKK Acapulco and are now trapped because they never anticipated that my defence team would think of using their phone TAP records to prove conclusively where they were that night.

Phone TAPs do not mean phone tapping. This is the system that the mobile telephony companies use for billing you when you use your phone while you are away from Malta. When your phone is ‘roaming’, each time you make a call or send a text message, your the system records exactly where you are, so as to be able to bill you.

These records, which are available only to the phone companies, are accurate down to the street, and in some cases even the street corner. But they will only come into play if you use your phone. If the Minister for the Economy and his person of trust used their phones even once and incurred roaming charges while they were at the FKK Acapulco, the records would show they were in that location in Velbert.

That is why they are objecting: they probably did use their phones, or can’t remember whether they did.