Yorgen Fenech is charged with orchestrating the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Printed On 2 Jul 2026
A businessman arrested seven years in the past for the 2017 homicide of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has gone on trial in Malta.
Yorgen Fenech, 44, was arrested on a yacht off Malta in 2019, in what prosecutors mentioned was an escape bid.
Fenech is charged with orchestrating the assassination of then 53-year-old Caruana Galizia, one in all Malta’s most distinguished journalists.
On the time of her killing, the journalist was investigating corruption and kickback allegations towards an offshore firm known as “17 Black”.
Following the homicide, it was revealed that Fenech was the proprietor of 17 Black.
“9 years after my mom’s homicide, the person accused of commissioning it stands trial,” the journalist’s son, Paul Caruana Galizia, wrote on social media on Wednesday.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed when a bomb positioned in her automotive blew up as she drove away from her house on the small Mediterranean island.
Prosecutors allege that Fenech commissioned a former taxi driver, Melvin Theuma, to seek out somebody to hold out the homicide.
Theuma ultimately confessed to hiring three males to hold out the bombing, telling the authorities that he obtained $170,000 from Fenech as cost.
Three males who carried out the bombing had been arrested weeks after the homicide and pleaded responsible in the beginning of their trial.
Two males who provided the bomb got life sentences in 2025, whereas the third accused was given a diminished sentence in return for info.
“This historic trial should expose the reality in regards to the despicable felony plot and the lethal chain of occasions that led to the execution of a journalist throughout the European Union,” mentioned media freedom watchdog Reporters With out Borders in an announcement in the beginning of Fenech’s trial.
The killing led to the resignation of then-premier Joseph Muscat in 2020 following mass protests over his authorities’s dealing with of the investigation.
A public inquiry revealed in 2021 concluded the state “shouldered duty” for the homicide as a result of “environment of impunity” the federal government had created.
Fenech has denied the costs towards him. His trial is anticipated to final for a number of weeks.
