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Maltese court acquits tycoon accused of masterminding journalist’s murder
🇦🇺 Australia /Crime & Justice

Maltese court acquits tycoon accused of masterminding journalist’s murder

From ABC Australia · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • A Maltese court acquitted businessman Yorgen Fenech of commissioning the 2017 car-bomb murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
  • Caruana Galizia’s family said the verdict denied her the justice she deserved, while five people have been convicted for supplying the explosives or carrying out the killing.
  • The case brought international attention to Malta’s rule of law and contributed to the resignation of then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in 2020.

Yorgen Fenech has been cleared of masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, ending one of Malta’s most closely watched criminal cases with a verdict her family said denied her the justice she deserved.

The investigative journalist died in October 2017 when a car bomb exploded near her home. Prosecutors accused Fenech, a wealthy businessman with interests in energy and tourism, of ordering the killing because Caruana Galizia was close to publishing a damaging article about his uncle.

denying her the justice she deserves

— Daphne Caruana Galizia’s familyThe family’s reaction to Fenech’s acquittal.

Caruana Galizia had built a reputation for exposing corruption at the highest levels of Maltese politics and business. Her reporting highlighted opaque links between the country’s political and business elites. Her death caused outrage across Europe and placed Malta, the European Union’s smallest member state, under intense scrutiny over alleged failures in the rule of law.

shoulder responsibility

— Malta public inquiryThe inquiry’s conclusion about the state’s responsibility for the murder.

The murder also triggered mass protests and contributed to the resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in January 2020. A public inquiry published in 2021 said the state should “shoulder responsibility” for the killing because the government had created an “atmosphere of impunity.” The inquiry also found that political attacks and verbal abuse against Caruana Galizia had created a “favourable climate” for her assassination.

Fenech was arrested on his yacht in 2019 as he tried to leave Malta, after a middleman in the murder was offered a pardon in exchange for identifying those involved. Five others have been convicted. Robert Agius and Jamie Vella received life sentences in 2025 for supplying the bomb, while George and Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat are serving prison terms for carrying out the murder.

favourable climate

— Malta public inquiryThe inquiry’s description of the conditions created before the assassination.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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