Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech was acquitted by a jury on Wednesday of masterminding the 2017 car-bomb assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, leaving the murder's mastermind unidentified after a nine-year probe. The 8-1 verdict spares Fenech a life sentence but intensifies scrutiny over Malta's rule-of-law record.
Fenech, 44, was arrested in 2019 while attempting to leave Malta by yacht after a middleman turned state witness. Prosecutors alleged he ordered the killing to suppress a forthcoming story on his uncle's business dealings. Five accomplices — three triggermen and two bomb suppliers — are already serving life sentences.
The journalist's family and press freedom groups condemned the acquittal as a failure of accountability, noting a 2021 public inquiry found the state responsible for creating a climate of impunity that enabled the murder. The case previously forced Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's resignation in 2020.
The verdict leaves the central question of who ordered the killing unanswered. Caruana Galizia's family said institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed nine years later, while Reporters Without Borders warned the outcome sends a disturbing message to those who target journalists.