Nine years after a car bomb, Malta has convicted nobody of ordering it.
A car bomb killed a journalist in Malta nine years ago. This week the last man accused of paying for it walked out of court.
Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote a twice-weekly column for the Malta Independent from 1996 and ran a blog called Running Commentary. In 2016 she worked through the Maltese material in the Panama Papers. She wrote that the prime minister's wife, the country's energy minister and the government's chief of staff held offshore companies in Panama set up to receive money from Azerbaijan, CBS News reported at the time. Half an hour before she died she posted about a libel claim the chief of staff had brought against a former opposition figure.
On October 16, 2017, a remotely detonated bomb destroyed her car.
That is the setup. Here is where the case stands.
Seven men were prosecuted. Five have been convicted. Vincent Muscat pleaded guilty in 2021 and was sentenced to fifteen years. Alfred Degiorgio and George Degiorgio were convicted in 2022 and given forty years each. Robert Agius and Jamie Vella were convicted in 2025.
Yorgen Fenech, a businessman, was the seventh, and the only one accused of paying to have her killed. On September 2, 2026, a jury acquitted him eight to one on both counts, complicity and criminal association.
Why the prosecution said he did it is not settled between the outlets that covered the trial. ICIJ reports prosecutors alleged Fenech paid 150,000 euros through a taxi driver, Melvin Theuma, over a power station corruption probe. France24 reports prosecutors alleged the motive was a compromising article about Fenech's uncle. Those are two different accounts of the same courtroom, and neither resolves the other.
Her son Matthew called the verdict a terrible decision. Reporters Without Borders said it was beyond outraged. The Committee to Protect Journalists called it heartbreaking. Prosecutors are expected to appeal.
The men who built the bomb are in prison. Nobody has been convicted of ordering it.
By the numbers
- 8-1 — the jury's vote acquitting Yorgen Fenech on both counts, complicity and criminal association[1]
- 150,000 euros — the payment prosecutors alleged Fenech made through taxi driver Melvin Theuma, on ICIJ's account of the trial[2]
- 40 years — the sentence given to Alfred and George Degiorgio, convicted in 2022 of carrying out the bombing[3]
The reporting
This story is built on reporting by ICIJ. Read the original →
Sources
- ICIJ, Jury acquits Maltese business tycoon in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia
- CBS News, Yorgen Fenech acquitted in Daphne Caruana Galizia killing
- France24, Maltese tycoon acquitted of reporter's murder
- CBS News, 2017: Malta Panama Papers journalist who exposed tax havens killed in car bombing
Image credits
- Hero: source (Reuters) — Darrin Zammit Lupi
- In story: source (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) — Ethan Doyle White
- In story: source (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) — RomanDeckert