Two brothers admitted this Friday (14) to being involved in the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Alfred and George Degiorgio had been formally charged with the crimes of murder, causing fatal explosion and conspiracy.
The confession represented a turning point early on in the trial of the case, as both had said they were innocent in the initial allegations. “Don’t you know who killed Daphne? Friends of hers! Investigate!” George said. After a break in the session, the brothers’ lawyer, Simon Micallef Stafrace, stated that they agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence.
In an interview with Reuters earlier this year, the same George Digiorgio had admitted his involvement in the murder, saying it was “business”. The defense then anticipated that the brothers would ask for leniency, proposing to speak “everything they know about other murders, bombs and crimes”.
At Friday’s trial, the request for pardon was not accepted. The jury, composed of five men and four women, was instructed to consider only what was said in court. In the end, Alfred and George Degiorgio were each sentenced to 40 years in prison — they could face life in prison.
Paul Caruana Galizia, one of the reporter’s three children, celebrated the conviction.
With the confessions, the number of people who admitted participation in the crime reaches four. A fifth suspect, Yorgen Fenech, is also in custody and awaiting trial. The Maltese Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses the businessman of having ordered the murder – he denies it.
According to this version, the Degiorgios and another accomplice, Vincent Muscat, planned to shoot Galizia, but they managed to get a bomb, which was placed in the journalist’s car. George reportedly detonated the artifact, from a yacht off the coast, while the other two acted as observers.
Muscat last year admitted to his role in the crime, striking a plea deal in exchange for information, and is serving a 15-year prison sentence.
The indictment was reconstructed from the testimony and telephone recordings of the fourth person involved, accused of being an intermediary in the plot. Melvin Theuma received a presidential pardon in exchange for information at the end of 2019. He who appointed Fenech as the principal.
The businessman was arrested in November 2019; the Degiorgios and Muscat in December 2017.
Galizia, 53, was a renowned journalist in Malta and had been named by the website Politico as one of the personalities who was “transforming and shaking” Europe. In reports, she had revealed the existence of a secret company that diverted funds to firms linked to Panamanian authorities registered in Panama — part of the so-called Panama Papers.
A later investigation by the Reuters agency pointed out that the secret company belonged to Fenech. He led a consortium that was awarded a controversial contract in 2015 by the Maltese government to build a power plant. His arrest led to the resignation of at least two officials, including the then prime minister, Joseph Muscat, who denied any involvement in Galizia’s death and was not charged.
The murder, on October 16, 2017, as the reporter was leaving her home in Mosta, raised a series of questions about the rule of law in the smallest member country of the European Union, in a phase of persecution of the press in different countries of the block.
This Sunday (16), the five years of the crime will be remembered with a demonstration that should have the participation of the President of the European Parliament, the Maltese Roberta Metsola.
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