Nine years after Daphne Caruana Galizia’s death, businessman goes on trial

It is nearly nine years since the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a bomb in a shoebox placed under the seat of her car. Last week, the last of the men alleged to be implicated in her killing went on trial. Five people have already been jailed for their part in the plot – two for life, two for 40 years each, another for 15 years – but Caruana Galizia’s sister, Corinne, told The Observer: “It was very clear to the family from the start that they were working for someone else.” In court last week the prosecution’s case was that they were working for Yorgen Fenech, the businessman who, it is alleged, ordered and paid €150,000 for the killing.

Fenech was arrested in 2019 on a yacht bound for Italy after allegedly being tipped off that the police were about to move against him. His legal team has successfully dragged out proceedings, to the frustration of Caruana Galizia’s family, but the years have not diminished the memory of the shock that the killing caused far beyond Malta.

A high-profile, prolific journalist – the best-known in the country – who campaigned against corruption in an EU state had been blown up by high explosives within sight of her home. One of her sons was close enough to hear the explosion and see his mother’s car on fire. It was more than just a human tragedy; the money that was flooding into countries on the fringes of the new Europe seemed to have brought with it a culture in which criminals assumed they could operate with impunity.

Fenech’s name came quickly to the attention of the police. The lead investigator, Keith Arnaud, told the court that he asked the same question as the family – “Did these [hitmen] have a reason to kill her themselves, or had someone commissioned them?” – and the evidence pointed in the direction of a guiding hand.

The case the prosecution has outlined against Fenech is a mix of witness and material evidence. The lead witness is Melvin Theuma, a self-confessed middleman between Fenech and the hitmen who have already been jailed, who was given a presidential pardon in return for agreeing to testify. Theuma is said to have secretly recorded some conversations with Fenech that will form part of the case.

The court heard that outside the Blue Elephant Thai restaurant in Malta in April 2017, Fenech told Theuma to arrange an assassination. Initially the reason he gave was that Caruana Galizia was working on a story that would cause trouble for his uncle. Later, as he urged Theuma to speed things up, he admitted that he, not his uncle, was her target.

In its live blog of the trial, the Times of Malta painted a picture of a courtroom packed with journalists from all over the world, law students and sketch artists, with a handful of police officers to keep order. At the centre of it all, a long table stacked with brown envelopes, with photographs visible inside some of them, “hinting at the evidence still to be presented”.

Already the jury has been given a host of small details that suggest the depth of the police investigation: a receipt for money found on a cooker hood; a meeting in the Busy Bee cafe in Msida; meetings near the potato shed in Marsa where the hitmen hung out.

Before the start of Friday’s proceedings, another of Caruana Galizia’s sisters, Mandy, uploaded a message to Facebook:

“Mummy died without seeing justice served, while Daddy – who is in his late 80s – still follows every little detail about Daphne online, after having spent years sitting in court (along with Mummy, inches away from his eldest daughter’s assorted murderers. Justice for Daphne can’t come soon enough. Malta must step up.”

Yorgen Fenech denies all the charges. The trial continues.

Photograph by AFP/Getty Images