A court in Valletta acquitted Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech on Wednesday of charges of complicity in the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and criminal association, after a jury found him not guilty.
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The verdict was announced after about eight hours of jury deliberation and was decided by a majority of eight votes in favor of acquittal against one against on both charges, according to Maltese media reports.
Fenech faced life imprisonment for the charges of complicity in murder and criminal association for the attack on October 16, 2017, that killed the 53-year-old reporter near her residence in Bidnija. A bomb had been placed by the killers under the seat of her car.
The prosecution accused the businessman of having paid 150,000 euros to an intermediary to organize the journalist’s murder and thus prevent the publication of information that could affect his businesses.
At the time of her death, Caruana Galizia was one of Malta’s most important journalists for her investigations into corruption and the Panama Papers.
During the trial, which lasted two months, the defense argued that the evidence presented did not rule out the existence of reasonable doubt and pointed to other figures in Maltese politics as possible perpetrators of the crime.
Fenech, former chairman of the Tumas Group conglomerate and one of Malta’s wealthiest individuals, arrived at the trial out on bail granted in February 2025, after having spent more than five years in pre-trial detention since his arrest in November 2019 aboard his yacht.
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The businessman was arrested while trying to leave Malta aboard his luxury yacht, a detention that triggered the biggest political crisis in the country’s recent history.
After his arrest, the businessman denied any responsibility and pointed to the then Chief of Staff of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, as the alleged mastermind of the murder.
The implication of Schembri and several ministers suspected of maintaining opaque financial ties with Fenech triggered a cascade of resignations that put the government on the ropes and forced Muscat’s own fall in early 2020.
For the material execution of the attack, brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio are serving 40-year sentences, while Vince Muscat was sentenced to 15 years after making a deal with the public prosecutor.
Meanwhile, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, who acted as an intermediary between the executors and those who ordered the crime, received a presidential pardon in exchange for providing recordings and other evidence incriminating Fenech.
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