Nine years on, the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia leaves Malta asking who ordered it
A courtroom verdict has closed one chapter in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, but it has opened another. On 2 September 2026, a jury acquitted businessman Yorgen Fenech of complicity in her murder and of criminal association, ending a trial that many hoped would finally answer the central question: who ordered the killing?
The answer remains out of reach.
Five people have been convicted for their roles in the bombing that killed Caruana Galizia on 16 October 2017 outside her home in Bidnija. Brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio pleaded guilty in 2022 to carrying out the assassination and are each serving 40-year sentences. Vincent Muscat pleaded guilty the previous year and received 15 years. Jamie Vella and Robert Agius were convicted in 2025 of supplying the bomb and are now serving life sentences. Melvin Theuma, the self-confessed middleman who coordinated the attack, received a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for his testimony.
But the person who commissioned the murder has never been convicted.
A verdict that finds guilt at the bottom, not the top
The trial of Yorgen Fenech, the Tumas Group businessman whose phone messages placed him at the centre of the investigation, was supposed to bridge that gap. Instead, the not-guilty verdict by an eight-to-one majority has left the case without a identified mastermind.
The prosecution has announced it will appeal. According to sources familiar with the case, the appeal will likely focus on procedural decisions during the trial — including the judge's refusal to allow the jury to hear about Fenech's three earlier requests for a presidential pardon in exchange for information about the murder. No new evidence has emerged since the verdict.
For the Caruana Galizia family, the outcome was devastating. Relatives wept in court. "Everybody is much more at risk now, because this signals you can kill journalists with impunity," said Corinne Vella, the journalist's sister, speaking to reporters outside the courtroom. The family later issued a statement describing the verdict as "justice denied" and warning that "institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed."
A culture of impunity, and the people still outside the courtroom
Rule of law organisations and journalists' groups say the verdict reinforces a pattern that a 2021 public inquiry described as a climate of impunity created by the Maltese state. That inquiry, led by retired judges, concluded that Caruana Galizia's death was foreseeable and preventable, and that the state bore responsibility for the conditions that enabled it.
Many of the inquiry's recommendations — aimed at protecting journalists and strengthening media freedom — have still not been fully implemented.
Meanwhile, other figures named during the investigation remain uncharged. Keith Schembri, former chief of staff to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was identified by Fenech as the mastermind. Schembri was briefly arrested in 2019 but released without murder charges. He denies any involvement, and police told the court he has never been a suspect in the assassination. He faces separate corruption proceedings unrelated to the killing.
At least seven other men arrested in December 2017 were released without charge. The trial also heard evidence of leaked information reaching Fenech from high-level political figures, and of an investigation described as uneven in quality.
Valletta protests and Brussels scrutiny
Civil society groups in Malta responded to Fenech's acquittal with protests in Valletta, organised by the campaign group Repubblika. Protesters called for a "national reckoning" with the corruption Caruana Galizia had investigated. A coalition of NGOs also demanded the resignation of Planning Authority chief Johann Buttigieg following the publication of leaked communications between him and Fenech.
In Brussels, reaction was swift. The European Parliament's Democracy, Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group announced it would escalate its oversight of Malta and organise a fact-finding mission to the island. Nationalist MEP David Casa said the mission was "a direct consequence of years of failure by the Maltese Government and by the State as a whole to secure full justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, delivering her State of the Union address, said: "There can be no impunity for Daphne's murder." She noted that the killing had inspired the European Media Freedom Act and added: "The pursuit of justice is not over yet."
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said abandoning the fight for justice would be a disservice to Caruana Galizia's family and to Malta and Europe as a whole. The European Federation of Journalists condemned the verdict as a denial of justice to journalists worldwide.
The case is not closed
The court has ordered that certain testimony from the trial be forwarded to two ongoing magisterial inquiries and to the police, signalling that the possibility of further criminal proceedings remains open. The Attorney General's appeal against Fenech's acquittal is pending.
For now, nearly a decade after a car bomb ended the life of Malta's most prominent investigative journalist, the question that matters most to Maltese society — who wanted her dead, and why — is one a court has yet to answer.
