Nine years after Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb outside her home in Bidnija, the trial of the man accused of ordering her murder has produced the most detailed public examination yet of the political, business and criminal relationships that surrounded her assassination and its aftermath. Yorgen Fenech, 44, denies complicity in murder and criminal association, but weeks of witness testimony in Valletta have laid out a series of revelations that go well beyond the mechanics of the bombing itself.
A businessman names the order
Alfred and George Degiorgio, the brothers who confessed to planting the bomb and are serving 40-year sentences, told the court they were instructed by former economy minister Chris Cardona, relaying an account in which Cardona allegedly told them "I want you guys to kill Daphne." The brothers also named Keith Schembri, then chief of staff to prime minister Joseph Muscat, as having been involved in the plot. Neither man has been charged in connection with this trial on the basis of that testimony.
Melvin Theuma, the taxi driver who acted as middleman and received a presidential pardon in exchange for his cooperation, has testified that he was paid €150,000 to organise the killing, in two instalments of €30,000 upfront and €120,000 after the murder was carried out.
Some of the trial's most striking testimony has concerned Schembri's conduct in the months before Fenech's arrest in November 2019. Johann Cremona, a former business partner of Fenech's at BestPlay Gaming, told the court that Schembri summoned him to the prime minister's office at Castille and asked to be told if Fenech made contact from abroad. Cremona said Schembri appeared visibly worried during the meeting.
Message exchanges shown to the court added further weight to that picture. In one exchange read out in court, Cremona wrote to Schembri that lead murder investigator Keith Arnaud "wants to screw us," to which Schembri responded in the affirmative. Cremona also testified that he turned to Schembri for reassurance after Fenech's arrest, telling jurors he feared being dragged into the investigation himself.
Cremona further testified that Theuma, in an unstable state after confiding his role in the murder plot, told him he had been "betrayed," naming both Fenech and Schembri as the men who had hired him, though Cremona repeatedly cautioned he could not confirm Theuma's claims independently.
An allegation of witness tampering
The trial was thrown into turmoil in late July when Schembri, testifying himself, claimed Cremona had been offered €400,000 by lawyers representing Fenech in exchange for favourable testimony. The claim triggered a bitter courtroom dispute between the two witnesses, with Fenech's defence team arguing the incident had prejudiced the jury and requesting its dissolution. The presiding judge, Edwina Grima, ruled there were no legal grounds to do so. A court-appointed IT expert later testified he could not technically verify screenshots Cremona said supported his account, though he noted that deleted messages cannot always be recovered, meaning their absence is not proof they never existed.
A motive rooted in a power station deal
Daphne Caruana Galizia's own family has told the court they remain convinced her murder was linked to the Electrogas power station project, a deal in which Fenech was a lead figure. Her son Matthew, who worked alongside his mother analysing leaked Electrogas emails, told jurors that Fenech sat "at the centre of everything" at the company. Jurors were also shown an email sent by an Electrogas employee just an hour after the bombing, instructing colleagues to "slow it down at Portomaso" because "Yorgen is sick."
Forensic evidence presented earlier in the trial confirmed the presence of TNT at the blast site and detailed the extent of the injuries Caruana Galizia suffered, including the discovery of a skull fragment inside the wreckage of her car. The trial, now well into its fifth month, is expected to reach a verdict this month.
Sources: The Shift News, Newsbook, MaltaToday, The Guardian
