As Yorgen Fenech left the courthouse in Valletta on Wednesday evening, he was confronted by the furious crowd outside. The 44-year-old Maltese businessman pushed through, flanked by his security guards. Just minutes earlier, a jury had acquitted him of ordering the murder of the 53-year-old investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The verdict came as a shock to her family. Her son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, said it was a "terrible decision by the jurors that our country may never recover from." He later doubled down on his criticism, describing the verdict in a post on Facebook as "obscene" and saying: "Their decision flies in the face of all evidence, of all logic, of the truth." Almost nine years after Caruana Galizia's murder, Malta is again confronted with the crucial question: Who was responsible for her death on October 16, 2017? The men who procured the bomb, placed it under the driver's seat and detonated it remotely have already been convicted.
But the person who contracted them to do it has still not been legally identified. For years, Fenech was considered to be the central figure in the investigations. His arrest on the morning of November 20, 2019, was like something out of a movie.
His luxury yacht, Gio, had just left harbor when it was stopped by a Maltese military patrol boat. Fenech was arrested on board and subsequently interrogated by the police. Fenech's arrest, and suspicion that people in government circles were involved in the crime, sparked protests all across the country.
Joseph Muscat, prime minister at the time, was accused of protecting political allies and stepped down in January 2020. Fenech spent more than five years in detention before being released on bail, under strict conditions, in early 2025. His trial only began this summer, and the final verdict was decisive.
Eight of the nine jurors rejected the prosecution's argument that it was Fenech who had ordered the journalist's murder. The prosecution case relied above all on the testimony of Melvin Theuma, who confessed to being the middleman and testified that Fenech had contracted him to organize the murder. Theuma received a pardon in exchange for his cooperation.
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