In Plea, Killer of Malta Journalist Caruana Galizia Gets Reduced Sentence
A partially-blind hitman who confessed to killing Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in October, 2017 with a car bomb was given a reduced 15-year sentence in a case that still hasn't seen the prosecution of those who ordered it.
A legal source told Reuters that Vince Muscat accepted responsibility and gave police vital information, but no motive for the killing, although Caruana Galizia was investigating corruption at the highest levels of government and business.
Three men suspected of having supplied the bomb which killed her - Jamie Vella and brothers Adrian and Robert Agius were arrested – said they gave an SMS code to detonate the bomb as she was driving away from her home, according to the same source.
Multimillionaire businessman Yorgen Fenech, tied to former premier Joseph Muscat - whose government fell after the killing - is suspected of having directed the crime and accused of being an accomplice but has denied it.
Fenech was close friends with the former premier's Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, who also has denied any wrongdoing nor any knowledge of the murder or its perpetrators. A self-confessed middleman in the plot, Melvin Theuma, turned state's evidence in 2019 in return for a pardon.
Malta's National Police Chief Angelo Gafa said, “Every person involved, be it mastermind or accomplice, is under arrest or facing charges,” The Guardian reported, stating that seven men have either admitted to or been charged with complicity in Caruana Galizia’s murder.
He didn't say, however, that police consider the case closed but that investigators had no evidence yet that a politician was involved in the journalist's 2017 murder, without saying who was behind it.
The pronouncement, said The New York Times, also left unclear whether senior government officials, including the former prime minister, had interfered in the case to protect Fenech. Prime Minister Robert Abela told reporters the investigation would continue.
Fenech was arrested in November 2019 while trying to flee Malta aboard his yacht, accused of paying three contract killers and orchestrating the journalist’s killing. He pleaded not guilty to complicity in murder but hasn't been tried.
Her family, which has carried on her work, said she was "assassinated" because of her reports uncovering alleged corruption in the Maltese government.
JUSTICE DELAYED
The paper said there is speculation her murder was tied to her criticism of an electricity generator, Electrogas, which received a $400 million loan from the Maltese government which made an expensive deal with Azerbaijan, part owner of the company in which Fenech's family conglomerate held a big stake.
"A person who has admitted his involvement in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia has denied her right to life and has denied her her right to enjoy her family, including her grandchildren who were born after she was killed," said the lawyer representing the family.
In 2016, Caruana Galizia broke a story about a string of secret Panama-based companies tied to Maltese politicians on her blog, including allegations of corruption against the wife of the then-premier, the couple denying them.
The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed the sentencing and said it hoped others involved would be brought to justice in a murder that rocked the nation and led the US TV show 60 Minutes to portray Malta as a corrupt country.
Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator said that, “Maltese authorities should take all measures to ensure that all the perpetrators of this crime, including its masterminds, are brought to justice.”
Since her murder, journalists collaborating on Galizia’s original investigations under The Daphne Project have uncovered further connections between the Maltese prime minister’s wife and Pilatus Bank which had been accused by Caruana Galizia of processing corrupt payments and money laundering.
The bank had its license withdrawn in 2018 by the European Central Bank.
Whistleblower Maria Efimova, who worked at the bank, was a key source for Caruana Galizia but fled to Greece after her name was revealed.
Maltese blogger Manuel Delia, who has written a book on the case, told The Daily Beast that Vincent Muscat’s confession does not solve the case. “Muscat is at the very bottom in the brutal pecking order of this Mafia. He is not even a button man.”
He added that Muscat “is a gofer that has seen things and remembered some of them and at a time when he came to face a possible life sentence he has used what he has seen and remembered to negotiate a reduced sentence for himself.”
He added that, “Hearing his confession, his admission of guilt is a small step in the sad, long and so far otherwise fruitless search for justice.”