A court in Malta has acquitted businessman Yorgen Fenech of masterminding the murder of anticorruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The 44-year-old was cleared of complicity to murder and criminal association to commit murder on Wednesday in a Valletta courtroom.
The jury reached its decision by an 8-1 margin after eight hours of deliberation. A conviction could have carried a life sentence.
What the prosecution and defence argued
Prosecutors said Fenech wanted Caruana Galizia killed because she was about to reveal information about him. Fenech denied the accusations.
His defence instead pointed to Keith Schembri, a former chief of staff to then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and a target of Caruana Galizia’s blogs. Police told the court Schembri had never been a suspect; Schembri has denied any role in the murder.
A case with wider political consequences
Caruana Galizia was 53 when she was killed in October 2017. Her reporting on corruption involving Malta’s business and political elites made the assassination a major focus for international scrutiny of the country’s police and judiciary.
Her family said after the verdict that institutional failures that enabled the killing remained unaddressed and unreformed. An independent inquiry in 2021 found that Maltese officials had failed to protect her from threats to her life before her death.
Muscat, who was never linked to the murder, resigned in January 2020 amid the political fallout from the assassination.
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