A jury in Valletta has cleared Jørgen Fenech of complicity in the 2017 car bomb killing, a verdict that has devastated the family of the slain anti-corruption journalist and reignited fears over the culture of impunity on the island.
Tears and anger as verdict delivered
A court in Malta has acquitted one of the country’s wealthiest men, the businessman Jørgen Fenech, who had been accused of involvement in the murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The verdict, which the prosecution intends to appeal, represents a heavy blow for the family of the deceased, as well as for the politicians and activists who viewed the case as a symbol of the struggle for press freedom in Europe.
Nearly nine years after the death of the 53-year-old Caruana Galizia in a car bomb explosion in October 2017, a jury of six women and three men found the 44-year-old Fenech not guilty on both counts after eight hours of deliberation. The charges were complicity in wilful homicide and conspiracy to commit a crime. The jury forewoman announced the decision to shouts and applause, the verdict proving decisive: by a majority of eight to one, both counts were dismissed.
In the courtroom in Valletta, relatives of Caruana Galizia wept while members of the Fenech family celebrated the ruling. “Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the systemic failures that made her murder possible remain uninvestigated and unrepaired,” the family of the slain journalist said in a statement. “True justice means that no one should ever again face the same risks. Our country failed to protect Daphne’s life. It owes it to her to prevent the deaths of others.”
“I pray to God to help you”
The jury began its deliberations on Wednesday morning after Madam Justice Edwina Grima concluded her final address. “I pray to God to help you in your decision,” the judge told the nine jurors before sending them to a dedicated room shortly after 11:00. They remained sequestered, with no contact with the outside world, until they had decided Fenech’s fate.
A minimum majority of six votes to three was required for a valid verdict; a five-to-four split would not have been accepted. The judge warned the jury not to be distracted by references to third parties, including the disgraced former chief of staff to the Prime Minister, Keith Schembri, describing this as a line of defence. Their sole task, she reminded them, was to determine whether the prosecution had proven Fenech’s guilt.
Fenech became the last of six defendants in the case to face trial. Video recording was not permitted in the courtroom, a standard practice for Maltese criminal proceedings.
Network of influence and sabotage
The prosecution had accused Fenech, a powerful property developer whose family owns two Hilton hotels and a stake in a power station in Malta, of paying €150,000 through an intermediary, Melvin Theuma, for the murder of the journalist. Prosecutors had demanded a life sentence. The first and most serious charge, complicity in murder, carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, while the second, conspiracy to murder, carried a maximum of 30 years.
The two-month trial exposed the scale of Fenech’s political connections and raised questions about attempts to sabotage and interfere with the police investigation. Key witnesses and the defendant himself claimed that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff had repeatedly leaked confidential information to Fenech. In his closing arguments, prosecutor Anthony Vella stated that Fenech believed he could “buy justice” and appealed directly to the jury:
“You are being asked to decide whether a man with extensive contacts in politics and among heads of state structures had enough power to pay for the murder of Daphne.”
In addition to Theuma’s testimony, the prosecution relied on secret recordings of conversations between the middleman and Fenech as evidence of his involvement. Prosecutors argued that Fenech wanted Caruana Galizia dead because she was about to publish information about him.
“All roads lead to Keith”
The defence maintained that the chain of command went higher, hinting that the mastermind behind the murder was the former chief of staff, Keith Schembri. Lawyers argued that the police had not sufficiently investigated his possible involvement. “All roads lead to Keith, and all bridges to Keith were burned,” defence lawyer Charles Mercieca declared in his closing statement. According to the defence’s version of events, Fenech was drawn into the conspiracy following a meeting between Schembri and Theuma in 2016 at the businessman’s family farm in Żebbuġ.
In his testimony, Fenech told the jury: “I never ordered the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia or anyone else. I played no role in her killing.”
He claimed that he was merely an intermediary between Schembri and Theuma, and that the taxi driver had been blackmailing him. Schembri, who gave evidence during the trial, denied all allegations, stating that he had no part in the leaks and no knowledge of the murder. Police told the court that Schembri was never a suspect in the case.
Nation’s reckoning
The murder of Caruana Galizia, dubbed a “one-woman WikiLeaks” who had criticised Fenech and leading political figures in her reporting, sparked the most significant political scandal in Malta’s post-war history and became a rallying point for activists fighting corruption and defending press freedom. The fallout ultimately forced the then-Prime Minister of the EU’s smallest member state, Joseph Muscat, to resign in January 2020, along with two of his ministers and his chief of staff.
A public inquiry published in 2021 concluded that the Maltese state “bears responsibility” for the assassination due to a culture of impunity that emanated from the highest echelons of power.
