Seven years after the 2017 car-bomb assassination of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech has appeared in court to face trial. The 44-year-old heir to a property empire is the seventh and final man to stand trial for a murder that shocked the nation and triggered international outrage over the rule of law in the European Union’s smallest member state.
Fenech was apprehended in 2019 while allegedly attempting to flee Malta on his yacht. Prosecutors have named him as the mastermind behind the plot, charging him with complicity in homicide and criminal association. The attorney general is seeking a life sentence for the murder charge, along with up to 30 years for the criminal association count, though Fenech continues to deny the allegations.
The legal proceedings faced significant hurdles just days before the scheduled start. On June 25, Fenech filed a petition with the Constitutional Court, alleging that his right to a fair trial was compromised by the discovery of a listening device in a prison meeting room where he had consulted with his legal team. While the court agreed to review the complaint, it ultimately refused to halt the proceedings, allowing jury selection to commence on July 1. The selection process was notably difficult, lasting five hours amid intense media scrutiny and high temperatures that caused one reserve juror to faint.
Under the requirements of Maltese law, the selected jurors will remain sequestered for the entirety of the trial, living in a hotel without access to digital devices such as computers, smartphones, or smartwatches. The trial is expected to span several weeks.
According to the indictment, the plot was initiated when Fenech approached his associate, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, fearing that Caruana Galizia was on the verge of publishing damaging reports about himself and his uncle. Theuma, who was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for his testimony, claims he received €150,000 in cash from Fenech inside a brown envelope to facilitate the hit. Theuma then coordinated with brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio to carry out the attack.
Other participants have already faced justice; in June 2025, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella were sentenced to life in prison for supplying the explosives. The Degiorgio brothers are currently serving 40-year sentences for the bombing, while accomplice Vincent Muscat is serving a 15-year term.
Caruana Galizia’s investigative work into high-level corruption led to mass protests and the eventual resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in January 2020. A 2021 public inquiry concluded that the government had fostered a state of impunity that enabled the killing. Family members of the late journalist, including her husband, three sons, and two sisters, have been present at the proceedings. Her sister, Mandy Mallia, recently expressed the family’s ongoing pain and their demand for justice, noting that Daphne’s mother passed away before seeing all the perpetrators held accountable.
