The intellectual responsibility for the death of the journalist who was investigating a bribery and money laundering scheme between the Maltese Government and a local businessman remains undetermined. This Wednesday, September 2, a jury acquitted Yorgen Fenech, who had been accused of the crime. Daphne Caruana Galizia was trying to determine the links between Fenech and several senior officials in the corruption case, when a bomb under the seat of her car ended her life in 2017.

First modification: 09/03/2026 - 02:02

The main suspect in ordering the death of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, businessman Yorgen Fenech, was acquitted in his trial of complicity in murder and the lesser charge of criminal conspiracy to commit murder.

Fenech, former president of the Tumas Group conglomerate and one of Malta's largest fortunes, arrived at the trial on bail granted in February 2025, after having spent more than five years in preventive detention since his arrest in November 2019 aboard his yacht.

The businessman was arrested when he tried to leave Malta aboard his luxury yacht, an arrest that triggered the biggest political crisis in the country's recent history.

The jury voted 8-1 in favor of exonerating Fenech of both charges, after eight hours of deliberation and several weeks of a trial that began due to the denunciation of one of those involved in the crime.

Taxi driver Melvin Theuma, a confessed intermediary in the plot that led to the journalist's death, pointed out Fenech's responsibility in exchange for a presidential pardon in 2019.

Keith Schembri, who was chief of staff to former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and a former ally of Fenech in the Government, maintained during the trial that the businessman: "He said things that made me believe that it could have been him who did it."

Fenech, for his part, pleaded not guilty and, in turn, accused Schembri, who was not investigated in relation to the crime.

The businessman did not offer statements, while the crowd gathered in front of the court shouted insults at him. His lawyer, Gianella de Marco, celebrated that “these people (referring to the jury) realized who was lying.”

The journalist's family issued a statement saying they regretted that "nine years after Daphne's brutal murder, the institutional failures that allowed her murder remain unaddressed and unaddressed."

"Lasting justice means that no one should ever face the same risks. Our country failed to protect Daphne's life. It owes it to her to prevent more lives from being lost," the statement added.

“A black shadow in the car”

Daphne Caruana Galizia had earned a reputation as a diligent investigative journalist and blogger, but it was her son Matthew, a software engineer and data journalist, who introduced her to the subject that ultimately cost her her life.

Matthew was uploading files to a database, as part of the Pulitzer-winning 'Panama Papers' investigation, when he discovered a series of documents related to their country, Malta, which he shared with his mother.

Thanks to these materials, she detected the registry of offshore companies and bank accounts linked to them, which an accounting firm was helping to create for Schembri and the then Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi.

Read alsoWho ordered the death of Daphne Caruana?: the journalist was investigating a corruption case when she was murdered

Subsequently, the leak of thousands of emails from the Eletrogas company, which had just won a million-dollar tender to reform the chaotic national energy system, led her to one of its owners, Fenech.

Daphne planned to form a group of journalists, similar to the one that investigated the Panama Papers, to determine the nature of the collaboration between Fenech, officials Schembri and Mizzi, and the government of then Prime Minister Muscat.

But on October 16, 2017, a device attached to the driver's seat of Daphne's car ended her life a few meters from her home.

"The horn was honking, it didn't stop. I looked through the fire and saw a black shadow on the car. I thought, 'That's my mother.'

Matthew then created the Daphne Project, a collaborative initiative that concluded in 2021 the work that the woman had started and tried to shed light on her murder.

In 2022, brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio pleaded guilty to having committed the crime and are currently serving a 40-year prison sentence.

In 2025, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius, accused of supplying the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia, were sentenced to life in prison for complicity in murder.

Another man, Vincent Muscat, pleaded guilty in 2021 to having played a role in the plot, in exchange for a reduced sentence, which was ultimately 14 years in prison.

Taxi driver Theuma was considered the key man in the plan, because he was supposedly in charge of connecting Fenech with the rest of the criminal network.

According to his testimony, the businessman told him that he needed to kill Caruana Galizia because she was going to "reveal information about Uncle Ray," in reference to Ray Fenech, his relative and director of the Grupo Tumas hotel conglomerate.

Theuma gave police recordings of his conversations with Fenech and testified during the trial, proceeding under the terms of the agreement that guaranteed him a presidential pardon.

Caruana Galizia's death sparked a wave of protests against the Muscat government, amid public perception that the former prime minister was trying to protect his political circle, which ultimately led him to resign in 2020.

With AP and Reuters

The content you requested does not exist or is no longer available.