Maltese businessman paid hitmen €150,000 to kill Daphne Caruana Galizia, jury hears | Daphne Caruana Galizia

One of Malta’s richest businessmen plotted to murder investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and paid €150,000 (£130,000) to three hitmen to carry out the murder, a jury has heard.

Yorgen Fenech, the 44-year-old heir to a real estate empire that includes the Hilton Malta hotel and casino, is on trial for the 2017 murder.

Caruana Galizia died when a bomb placed in her car exploded. As a magazine publisher, newspaper columnist and blogger, he was one of the country’s best-known media figures. His reporting on leading government and business figures had made him the target of repeated attacks by politicians and their supporters, and his violent death caused outrage across Europe.

Fenech was arrested seven years ago. After he was released on bail in February following numerous delays and the expiration of the period for which he could be legally held, his trial began on Wednesday morning in the justice courts in Malta’s capital, Valletta.

The defendant, wearing a dark blue suit and glasses, pleaded not guilty.

Fenech is charged with two offences: complicity in the intentional murder of Caruana Galizia and association with a person or persons in Malta with the intent to commit a crime in Malta.

He is one of seven male prosecutors accused of involvement in the murder and the last to be tried. Five of the seven were convicted and one received a pardon in exchange for testimony.

Due to concerns about the level of media interest in the case and its possible impact on the public, it took the opposing sides five hours to agree on jury selection while those ready for duty waited outside the courtroom for their names to be called. Authorities were called to help after an alternate juror fainted as temperatures rose to 33C.

Under Maltese law, the jury will be segregated for the entirety of the trial, will live in a hotel and will not have access to computers, mobile phones or smartwatches.

The hearing began with the reading of the indictment, which is a summary of the allegations written by government prosecutors.

The jury heard how Caruana Galizia’s car went off the road and into a field as she was driving away from her home in the village of Bidnija shortly before 3pm on October 16, 2017.

A powerful bomb in the children’s shoebox was placed under the driver’s seat, the jury was told. The bombers, who prosecutors say were paid €150,000 to carry out the attack, had broken into the journalist’s car the night before after spending weeks monitoring his movements.

Her son, Matthew Caruana Galizia, who was at the house with her, was the first to arrive at the scene and found her remains in the burning wreckage. He was 53 years old.

The alleged plot to kill the journalist was planned in April 2017, the jury was told. Yorgen Fenech called his friend Melvin Theuma, a taxi driver and bookmaker, and asked him to meet him near the Hilton, where he was given a lucrative stand to pick up guests from the hotel.

The indictment alleges that Fenech told Theuma to find someone to kill Caruana Galizia. He even gave him the name of a potential hitman, a gangland figure named George Degiorgio who operated from a warehouse on the Marsa docks opposite Valletta’s major harbour. The jury was told Fenech wanted the journalist killed because he was about to publish a story about his uncle.

After Theuma contacted Degiorgio and his brother Alfred, a price of €150,000 was agreed, €30,000 of which was upfront. But the jury heard that a general election was due to be held on June 3 and Fenech put the murder on hold. Two weeks after the ruling Labor Party administration returned to power, the prosecutor alleges Fenech told Theuma to go ahead with the plan. The indictment alleges that Fenech personally delivered an envelope containing money to Theuma.

According to the indictment, as the weeks and months passed, Fenech pressed for the plan to be put into action, this time saying that Caruana Galizia was about to publish a story about him.

After considering using a rifle, the hitmen decided on a bomb. It was equipped with a cell phone receiver and was detonated remotely by a text message sent by George Degiorgio while he was at the wheel of his boat in the major harbour.

The indictment alleges that a few days after the murder, Alfred Degiorgio went to Theuma’s garage to collect the money. Theuma paid him another €5,000 for expenses, including a pair of powerful binoculars. The indictment alleges that Fenech spent “tens of thousands” more on legal fees after Degiorgios’ arrest.

The Degiorgio brothers and their accomplice, Vincent Muscat, were arrested shortly afterwards and detained following a televised raid on their warehouse on 4 December.

The jury heard how Theuma was arrested on November 14, 2019, clutching an ice cream box containing USB drives containing copies of secretly recorded conversations with Fenech, which the prosecution relied on. Fenech’s team disputed the prosecution’s interpretation of the recordings, claiming Theuma’s testimony contained “half-truths” and “outright lies”.

The indictment repeatedly identifies Fenech as the instigator of the plot to kill Caruana Galizia, and states that Fenech devised the plan and paid others to carry out the murder.

The Chief Public Prosecutor requested life imprisonment for the murder charge and 20 to 30 years in prison for the complicity charge.

The case caused a political and constitutional crisis in Malta that threatened to topple the government. Then-prime minister Joseph Muscat, who is not related to Vincent Muscat, resigned in December 2019, immediately after Fenech’s arrest.

Vincent Muscat was given a 15-year prison sentence and a presidential pardon after he pleaded guilty to all charges, including premeditated murder, and testified against the Degiorgio brothers. They initially denied the charges against them, including premeditated murder, before changing their pleas to guilty on the first day of their trial in October 2022. The plea bargain reduced their sentences from life imprisonment to 40 years.

Two men accused of supplying the bomb, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, were sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2025. They are not eligible for parole or any other form of early release.

Theuma has been living under the witness protection program since 2019.