Fenech acquitted in Caruana Galizia murder: "If this is justice…"
Wealthy businessman Jórghen Fenech was acquitted 8-1 by a jury in the contract killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017.
Fenech acquitted in trial for Caruana Galizia murder — conviction without a mastermind
On 16 October 2017, shortly after 3 p.m., 53-year-old journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia left her home on the outskirts of Valletta. A bomb planted beneath the driver's seat exploded immediately and dismembered her.
This week the trial of Jórghen Fenech, one of the wealthiest men in Malta, concluded. The prosecution had accused him of being the mastermind behind the murder — the man who ordered and financed it. The jury acquitted him 8-1. According to tvxs.gr, a columnist in the Times of Malta reacted with the headline: "If this is justice, I'm a banana".
Years of revelations and pending lawsuits
Caruana Galizia had exposed corruption scandals in Malta's political and economic life for years. She received threats and legal pressure; when she was murdered, approximately 50 lawsuits were pending against her, aimed at silencing her. According to the prosecution, Fenech wanted to stop the revelations about his business activities, which were marked by corruption.
The executors and the intermediary
The physical perpetrators are known: brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio placed and detonated the bomb, whilst Vincent Muscat participated in surveillance and preparation. Muscat confessed in 2021 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The two brothers confessed in 2022 and were each sentenced to 40 years. In 2025, two more people were convicted of supplying the explosives.
Taxi driver Melvin Theuma served as intermediary. He testified that Fenech handed him a total of 150,000 euros for the murder: 30,000 euros as an advance and 120,000 euros after the execution. Theuma had received a presidential pardon in exchange for his testimony and was a key prosecution witness.
Recordings and admissions in court
Particularly revealing were Theuma's secret recordings. He had made them because he feared he would ultimately be left alone to pay for the crime. In the recordings Fenech talks about money, about the executors and about information that reached those involved regarding the police investigation.
Fenech himself admitted in court that he had paid approximately 450,000 euros to cover the legal costs of the Degiorgios after the murder — he claimed, however, that he was a victim of extortion. Despite a barrage of evidence, the jury acquitted him.
A dark network of power
The case exposed close links between businessmen, politicians, state officials and underworld figures. Before their arrests, the perpetrators were systematically informed of police investigations by sources within the police. The deputy chief of police drove Fenech's white Rolls-Royce — the very man he was supposedly investigating.
The accused Fenech named in court Keith Schembri, head of the office of then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, as the real mastermind behind the murder. The two had worked together in the past.
Resignations, but no electoral punishment
The international pressure that followed led Muscat to resign from the premiership, along with two of his ministers and Schembri. Despite the scandal, Malta's Labour Party won the subsequent election again.
In the European Parliament, a group of MEPs undertook a campaign for the truth to be revealed, in cooperation with the murdered woman's family. These initiatives led to the establishment of an annual journalism award in Daphne's name by the European Parliament, as well as the passage of a directive against so-called SLAPPs — intimidatory and abusive lawsuits against journalists and citizens seeking or revealing the truth.
"We know the executors, not the person who ordered it"
Thus today we know the physical perpetrators and the intermediary. However, beyond the money, none of them had a personal motive to eliminate Daphne Caruana Galizia. Fenech's acquittal leaves the question of who ordered the murder open. The government environment under Muscat, according to tvxs.gr, created the conditions that put the journalist in the crosshairs and allowed a killer to believe he could act with impunity.
Source: Google News GR — Crime (el)