Malta Court Acquits Businessman Nine Years After Journalist’s Murder

Nine years after Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb, a Maltese court found businessman Yorgen Fenech not guilty in the case.

The investigative journalist died in October 2017 when a bomb placed beneath the driver’s seat of her car exploded in Bidnija, northern Malta. The device was detonated remotely from a nearby yacht. Caruana Galizia had reported on corruption and organised crime during her career.

The murder had major political consequences in Malta and contributed to the resignation of the prime minister. Several people have already received sentences in the case. Brothers who confessed to the murder were sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2022. A man found guilty who assisted the investigation received 15 years in 2021, while two men who supplied the bomb received life sentences in 2025.

Prosecutors had accused Fenech of commissioning the murder, a charge that could have led to a life sentence. His trial began in July. The court acquitted him on both charges, one involving participation in the murder and the other involving criminal associations.

Caruana Galizia’s family expressed disappointment. “Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the system’s failures that enabled her murder have still not been resolved,” the family wrote, according to The Times of Malta.

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Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the system’s failures that enabled her murder have still not been resolved.