Malta court acquits businessman of car bomb murder of anti-corruption journalist
The verdict leaves no one convicted of masterminding the 2017 car bombing, after prosecutors said Fenech could face life in prison.
- On Wednesday, a jury in Malta acquitted Yorgen Fenech of complicity to murder and criminal association in the 2017 car bomb killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
- Caruana Galizia was killed in Oct 2017 while investigating corruption linked to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's inner circle, whom she accused of holding offshore companies disclosed via the Panama Papers.
- Prosecutors secured convictions against George Degiorgio and Alfred Degiorgio, who each received 40 years in prison, while middleman Melvin Theuma was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 for his testimony.
- An independent 2021 inquiry concluded the Maltese state "has to bear responsibility" for the assassination, citing a culture of impunity emanating from the highest levels of government on the Mediterranean island.
- Caruana Galizia's death shocked Europe and the European Union, triggering massive protests that toppled Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, as Fenech remained the last of a half-dozen people charged in the plot.
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CPJ and the family of the journalist murdered in 2017 expressed their outrage after the acquittal of the tycoon accused of intellectual authorship of the crime.
The President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) and the Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists in Serbia, Veran Matić, said today that he is outraged and disappointed by the acquittal of the accused of participating in the murder of journalist Dafna Caruana Galicija in Malta.
The Maltese Journalists' Institute regrets the acquittal of Yorgen Fenech: "Someone, somewhere, ordered his death, and that person remains free."
Maltese Businessman Acquitted of Hiring Bomb Gang That Killed Investigative Journalist
Yorgen Fenech walks out of the Malta law courts after being found not quilty for the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in Valletta on Sept. 2, 2026. (Matthew Mirabelli/ AFP via Getty Images)
European Parliament’s Metsola on Daphne Caruana Galizia verdict: ‘We will not give up, we will not give in’
Malta's Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, said the fight would go on after the acquittal of millionaire Yorgen Fenech over the 2017 car bombing assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
A prominent businessman was considered to be the presumptuous mastermind of the assassination attempt. Now he is acquitted.
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