VALLETA, Malta — A jury in Malta on Wednesday acquitted the Maltese businessman accused of being the mastermind of the 2017 car bomb killing of crusading investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Caruana Galizia’s killing shocked Europe, led to protests that toppled a prime minister and exposed a culture of impunity on the Mediterranean island nation, the European Union’s smallest.
Fenech was involved in a consortium that won a controversial contract with the Maltese government to build a power station. It owes it to her to prevent other lives being lost.” “Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed. “Our country failed to protect Daphne.
An independent inquiry into the 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. Lasting justice means no person should ever face the same risks again,” the statement said.
She had written extensively about suspected corruption in political and business circles in Malta, with investigative reports targeting people in then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle whom she accused of having offshore companies in tax havens disclosed in the Panama Papers leak. She also targeted the opposition and business leaders in Malta.
