Malta: Yorgen Fenech acquitted of murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
A Maltese court acquitted businessman Yorgen Fenech on Wednesday of charges that he orchestrated the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Her family and RSF denounce a denial of justice.
Fenech acquittal: Daphne Caruana Galizia's family denounces denial of justice
A Maltese court delivered an acquittal verdict on Wednesday in favour of businessman Yorgen Fenech, prosecuted for orchestrating the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in 2017 by a car bomb attack. According to Google News FR — Crime (fr), it was the victim's family who announced the decision in a statement, lamenting what they describe as a "denial of justice".
The jury deliberated for more than eight hours before pronouncing 8 votes to 1 in favour of the accused's innocence. Daphne Caruana Galizia was 53 years old when she was killed near her home. Her murder had shaken Malta and provoked a wave of condemnation internationally.
The case and judicial proceedings
Yorgen Fenech was arrested in late 2019 aboard his yacht as he attempted to leave Maltese territory. The businessman, who had secured a multimillion-euro contract with the Maltese State in 2013 for the construction of a gas-fired power plant, has consistently denied ordering the murder.
According to the indictment, Fenech allegedly ordered the journalist's elimination because she was about to publish a compromising article about one of his close associates. Caruana Galizia had notably conducted Malta's investigations into the Panama Papers and revealed scandals involving several associates of the Prime Minister at the time, Joseph Muscat.
The latter was himself forced to announce his resignation in late 2019 — effective early 2020 — under pressure from daily demonstrations, after being accused of interfering in the investigation and protecting collaborators who were implicated.
Convictions upstream, but not at the top
Other protagonists in the case, however, have been convicted. In October 2022, two brothers each received 40-year prison sentences for manufacturing, placing and triggering the bomb that killed the journalist. In June 2025, two other men were sentenced to life imprisonment for supplying the explosive used in the attack.
Reactions from the family and RSF
"Yorgen Fenech has been acquitted of the brutal murder of Daphne, nine years after she was killed, denying her the justice she deserves. We remain grateful to all those who worked to have Fenech brought to justice," the family said in its statement.
"This day should have been Daphne's. Our dreams and hers were shattered when she was murdered outside the family home, at just 53 years of age. It is high time that all those who permitted, facilitated or protected her murderers were held to account," it continued.
The family also highlighted persistent structural failures: "Nine years after Daphne's brutal murder, the institutional failures that made her murder possible have still not been addressed or corrected. Our country failed to protect Daphne's life."
The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) expressed its own indignation. "This verdict means that, nearly nine years after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese authorities have still failed to identify or convict the person who ordered the murder," the organisation said in a statement.
RSF also called on Malta to act: "Justice must be fully served and the Maltese authorities must implement the measures that have been expected for far too long to protect journalists and press freedom. The absence of these measures contributed to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, as concluded by the public inquiry conducted into this crime five years ago."
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)