Jury acquits Maltese business tycoon in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia

PRESS FREEDOM Jury acquits Maltese business tycoon in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia Yorgen Fenech was the last of seven men prosecuted for her 2017 assassination. A businessman accused of orchestrating the killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been found not guilty on all charges. Yorgen Fenech, the heir to a multimillion-euro property empire, was cleared Wednesday after a Maltese jury returned an 8-1 verdict in his favor. The prosecution is expected to appeal the verdict. Indicted in 2019, Fenech faced charges of complicity and criminal association to commit murder. The trial began in Valletta, Malta’s capital, on July 1 after years of procedural delays and was being closely watched by press freedom advocates. “We are beyond outraged,” Pavol Szalai, director of the Prague bureau of Reporters Without Borders, wrote in a statement. “The verdict means that almost nine years since the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese authorities have failed to identify and convict the mastermind.” Caruana Galizia was killed in October 2017 when a bomb placed in her car was detonated remotely. She had been working on stories based on the Panama Papers, including an investigation into alleged links between offshore business deals and Maltese politicians. At the time of her death, she was investigating a controversial power station deal involving Fenech. Prosecutors argued that Fenech, whose family owns two Hilton hotels, paid 150,000 euros (about $125,000) via a middleman, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, to have the journalist killed. Theuma, who was arrested in 2019 and granted a presidential pardon, served as a central witness for the prosecution and identified Fenech as the mastermind behind the assassination. Fenech and his lawyers denied the charges, claiming that Keith Schembri, chief of staff to then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, ordered the killing. Muscat resigned in 2019 following intense public scrutiny and political backlash related to the murder. Schembri, who gave evidence during the trial, denied all wrongdoing, and police told the court that Schembri had never been a suspect. The jury came to a near-unanimous decision after eight hours of deliberation, according to ICIJ media partner Times of Malta. “Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed,” Caruana Galizia’s family said in a statement. Her son Matthew Caruana Galizia worked for ICIJ from 2014 to 2018. Almost nine years since the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese authorities have failed to identify and convict the mastermind. — Pavol Szalai, director of the Prague bureau of Reporters Without Borders Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg was the first politician to publicly react to the verdict, Times of Malta reported. He organized a protest in front of the Parliament building Wednesday night and wrote on Facebook that Malta “still lacks full justice” in Caruana Galizia’s case. Five men have been convicted in relation to the journalist’s murder. In 2021, Vincent Muscat pleaded guilty over the killing and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2022, brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio were sentenced to 40 years each for planting and detonating the bomb. In 2025, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella were sentenced to life imprisonment for procuring and supplying the bomb.