“We will not give up and we will not give in,” European Parliament president Roberta Metsola wrote on Facebook post on Thursday (3 September), reacting to Wednesday’s court verdict relating to the 2017 murder of the Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that shook Europe.
Yorgen Fenech, the man charged with being the mastermind behind her assassination in October 2017 and one of Malta’s richest tycoons, was found not guilty on either of the charges: complicity in the homicide and association with the intention of committing a crime.
The verdict by an eight-to-one jury majority after eight hours of deliberation, delivered at 7.30 pm on Wednesday, immediately prompted outcry and rage online.
After years of procedural delays, Fenech’s trial took over two months to reach a conclusion.
Fenech was arrested on his yacht in 2019 as he tried to sail out of Malta, and was formally indicted in 2021.
“When they assassinated you, in broad daylight, outside your family home, we promised that we would not let them sweep it under the carpet,” Metsola said in her social media. “That promise holds today.”
In a message on Facebook, Matthew Caruana Galizia, Daphne’s eldest son, said: “We knew an acquittal was a huge possibility. But it’s like when someone dies, it still shocks you.”
“That verdict can never be accepted no matter what,” he said.
“Their decision flies in the face of all evidence, of all logic, of the truth … What happened in that room is not justice but pure evil,” he added.
Daphne’s sister, Corinne Vella, also noted that Fenech has admitted his guilt when he asked to be pardoned for Daphne’s murder. “Not once, not twice – he asked for a pardon three times. No one asks for a pardon if he is innocent.”
“Everybody is much more at risk now, because this signals you can kill journalists with impunity,” she added.
The verdict is “heartbreaking” for her family who has been nine years waiting for justice, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on social media.
Likewise, Reporters Without Borders demanded in an online statement that the “[Maltese] government take measures to protect journalists and media freedom.”
Five men have been convicted in relation to Caruana Galizia’s killing: three who carried out the assassination order and two for supplying the bomb planted under the journalist’s car, which took her life nine years ago.
If convicted, Fenech would have faced a life sentence. On Wednesday, he was released from custody.