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Yorgen Fenech found not guilty of killing journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
Verdict issued
Yorgen Fenech has been found not guilty by a jury in Malta of charges related to the 2017 car bomb killing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Yorgen Fenech has been found not guilty by a jury in Malta of charges related to the 2017 car bomb killing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Cultural Implications
The not guilty verdict for Yorgen Fenech underscores the persistent culture of impunity in Malta, raising questions about institutional accountability and the protection of journalists engaged in critical investigations.
The not guilty verdict for Yorgen Fenech underscores the persistent culture of impunity in Malta, raising questions about institutional accountability and the protection of journalists engaged in critical investigations.
Family Statement
“Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed,” her family stated following the not guilty verdict.
“Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed,” her family stated following the not guilty verdict.
Malta jury clears suspect mastermind businessman in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case
Published on
A jury in Malta on Wednesday found Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech not guilty of charges related to the 2017 car bomb killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Caruana Galizia’s killing shocked Europe, sparked protests that led to the resignation of a prime minister and exposed a culture of impunity in Malta, the European Union‘s smallest member state.
Fenech, a prominent Maltese businessman, was indicted in 2021 on charges of complicity and criminal conspiracy. He was involved in a consortium that won a controversial contract with the Maltese government to build a power station.
Prosecutors accused Fenech of masterminding the killing and of ordering and paying for it.
Fenech pleaded not guilty, and the jury on Wednesday found him not guilty on both counts. He was the last of a half-dozen people charged over the plot to be prosecuted.
Following the verdicit, he walked out of the Valletta courtroom to a chaotic scene outside, with hecklers yelling as he walked into a waiting car. He made no comment.
Targeted over her anti-corruption investigations
Caruana Galizia, 53, was killed on 16 October 2017 when a car bomb exploded as she was driving near her home.
She had reported extensively on suspected corruption involving political and business figures in Malta.
Her investigations included members of then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle, whom she accused of having offshore companies in tax havens revealed by the Panama Papers. Her reporting also scrutinised opposition figures and Maltese business leaders.
At the time of her death, Caruana Galizia was facing more than 40 libel lawsuits.
An independent inquiry into her killing, published in 2021, concluded that the Maltese state “has to bear responsibility” for the assassination due to a culture of impunity that emanated from the highest levels of government.
Others prosecuted over the killing
In 2022, George Degiorgio and his brother Alfred Degiorgio pleaded guilty to carrying out the killing and were each sentenced to 40 years in prison.
In 2025, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius were sentenced to life in prison, the maximum possible penalty, after being convicted of complicity in the murder. The two men were accused of supplying the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia.
Another man, Vincent Muscat, pleaded guilty in 2021 for his role in the slaying, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Melvin Theuma, a taxi driver who admitted acting as a middleman, was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for his testimony.
‘Our country failed to protect Daphne’
Caruana Galizia’s children were at the forefront in demanding accountability and justice for her death. Her sons were in the courtroom when the verdict was read out but left without commenting.
In a statement later posted to Facebook, the family said the verdict denied Caruana Galizia the “justice she deserves.”
“Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed. Lasting justice means no person should ever face the same risks again,” the statement said. “Our country failed to protect Daphne. It owes it to her to prevent other lives being lost.”
No cameras were allowed in the courtroom, as is customary in Maltese criminal trials.
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides
Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
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To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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