By The European Times | Created at 2026-09-03 07:50:00 | Updated at 2026-09-03 08:33:50
54 minutes ago
Yorgen Fenech has been cleared of complicity in the journalist’s assassination, renewing scrutiny of Malta’s unfinished press-freedom reforms
A Maltese jury has acquitted businessman Yorgen Fenech of complicity in the 2017 assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The verdict must be respected: prosecutors did not persuade the jury of his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Yet the outcome leaves Malta without a judicially established answer to one of the case’s central questions — who commissioned the murder of a journalist whose reporting exposed corruption and links between political and business interests.
A decisive verdict
After a trial lasting 55 sitting days, the nine-member jury found Fenech not guilty of complicity in wilful homicide by eight votes to one. It returned the same majority on the second charge, association with another person or persons for the purpose of committing a crime in Malta, according to reporting from the Valletta court.
Fenech, who had consistently denied the accusations, left court following the verdict on Wednesday evening. His defence welcomed the decision and argued that the prosecution’s evidence, much of which depended on testimony from self-confessed intermediary Melvin Theuma, had failed to remove reasonable doubt.
That distinction matters. Public anger, political suspicion and unanswered questions cannot replace the standard required for a criminal conviction. Fenech has been acquitted of the charges brought against him, and reporting on the case must not treat the verdict as provisional guilt.
At the same time, an acquittal determines the legal responsibility of the accused before the court. It does not establish an alternative account of who ordered the assassination or resolve the institutional conditions surrounding it.
Convictions without a complete account
Caruana Galizia was killed on 16 October 2017 when a bomb placed beneath the driver’s seat of her car exploded near her home in Bidnija. The 53-year-old journalist had investigated alleged corruption, offshore financial structures and the relationship between senior political figures and powerful businesses.
Several people have been convicted for operational roles in the murder. Brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio received 40-year prison terms after admitting to carrying out the killing. Vincent Muscat was sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty, while Robert Agius and Jamie Vella received life sentences for supplying the bomb.
Those convictions establish substantial parts of how the assassination was executed. Following Fenech’s acquittal, however, no person stands convicted of commissioning it.
Caruana Galizia’s family said the verdict had denied her the justice she deserved and argued that the institutional failures which enabled the assassination remained insufficiently addressed. Malta’s government said it respected the jury’s decision, had provided resources for the investigation and remained committed to justice.
Responsibility beyond the courtroom
The criminal case and Malta’s wider institutional responsibility are related but separate matters. An independent public inquiry concluded in 2021 that the state bore responsibility for creating a climate of impunity in which the assassination became possible, while finding no evidence that the state itself had participated in the killing.
The inquiry recommended stronger protections for journalists, reforms addressing conflicts of interest and measures to improve accountability across public institutions. Progress has followed in some areas, including changes to judicial appointments and Malta’s implementation of European rules on media freedom. The central concern has increasingly become whether reforms are effective in practice.
During an European Parliament debate on Malta’s rule-of-law record in October 2025, the European Commission said further work was still required on lobbying rules, integrity standards for senior officials, whistleblower protection, access to public documents and the implementation of the inquiry’s anti-corruption recommendations.
These obligations do not depend on the conviction of a particular defendant. Protecting journalists, ensuring independent investigations and reducing the influence of political or commercial interests over public institutions are duties of the state regardless of how an individual trial concludes.
A European press-freedom case
Caruana Galizia’s assassination became a European symbol because it demonstrated that investigative journalism could carry mortal risk inside the European Union. Her name now belongs to the European Parliament’s annual journalism prize, but remembrance cannot substitute for institutional change.
The European Media Freedom Act strengthens safeguards for editorial independence, journalistic sources, transparent media ownership and the allocation of state advertising. Those protections are important, but they are not a retrospective remedy for an unresolved assassination. Nor can European legislation compensate for weak national enforcement.
The immediate task is therefore twofold. Malta must respect the jury’s verdict and every protection owed to an acquitted defendant. It must also pursue any remaining lawful avenues of investigation, provide a transparent account of the institutional lessons from the prosecution and complete the reforms recommended after Caruana Galizia’s death.
Nearly nine years after the bombing, the case has produced convictions, political upheaval and a substantial body of reform proposals. What it has not produced is a complete judicial account of responsibility. That absence will continue to weigh on Malta’s institutions — and on Europe’s claim that journalists can investigate power without paying for it with their lives.
