Maltese businessman charged over journalist’s murder granted bail

A court in Malta on Friday granted bail to a businessman who is charged with complicity in the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017.

Yorgen Fenech was arrested in November 2019 in connection with Caruana Galizia’s murder, but no date has been set for his trial. Fenech — who is the former CEO of the Tumas Group, a property and development company — denies the charges.

Caruana Galizia, dubbed a “one-woman Wikileaks” for her reporting on corruption within the country’s business and political elites, was killed by a car bomb near her home on 16 October 2017. Three men — Vincent Muscat and the brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio — are serving long prison sentences for planning and carrying out the murder.

When the bail decision was announced on Friday, Fenech hugged his relatives in court. The defendant’s aunt, Moira Fenech, will serve as his guarantor, with her Tumas company shares serving as collateral, The Times of Malta reported.

Fenech himself will have to pay an €80,000 deposit and agree to a €120,000 personal guarantee, the paper reported.

As part of his bail conditions, Fenech must surrender his passport and identity documents and will not be allowed within 50 metres of Malta’s coastline or the airport.

Reacting to the development, Andrew, one of Caruana Galizia’s three sons, said: “Deeply depressing news from the Maltese courts this morning. It’s been more than seven years since my mother’s assassination and five years since Yorgen Fenech was indicted for her murder.”

The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, which works to end impunity for the murder of journalists, criticised what it called the failure of the Maltese justice system.

“The Maltese state failed Daphne in life and is now failing her in death. Almost eight years on, justice for her murder has not been delivered,” it said. “The bomb that killed her was a warning: Malta’s justice system is failing the victims of organised crime.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an organisation which protects journalists, said it was “shocked that the person accused of ordering the assassination of reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia has been released on bail after five years in custody, while the judicial proceedings in his case have been lagging behind.”

“Justice for the 2017 murder is long overdue,” it added.

The former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, of the Labour Party, resigned in 2020 amid protests about the government’s handling of the Caruana Galizia murder inquiry.

His replacement, Robert Abela, who is also from the Labour Party, has led the country for the last five years.