Eight years on, guilty verdicts in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder – but justice remains incomplete

More than eight years after Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb attack, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella have been found guilty of her murder, marking a significant, though incomplete, step toward justice in a case that has come to symbolise impunity at the heart of an EU state.

The long-awaited verdict was delivered on Thursday by a jury at Malta’s Criminal Court in Valletta, finding the two men, both known figures in Malta’s criminal underworld, guilty of complicity in the murder.

Caruana Galizia, 53, a tenacious investigative journalist known for exposing corruption at the highest levels of Maltese government and business, was killed on 16 October 2017 when a powerful bomb detonated beneath her car outside her family home in Bidnija.

Her death sent shockwaves across Europe and drew condemnation from press freedom groups, EU institutions, and foreign governments.

But it has taken nearly a decade for key perpetrators to be brought to justice. The path to the verdict has been long, fraught, and painfully slow, marked by political upheaval, legal delays, and revelations of deep-rooted collusion between criminals and elements of the state.

Agius and Vella were accused of acting as crucial links in the murder plot—procuring the explosives and coordinating with the hitmen who physically carried out the assassination.

Their conviction follows the earlier guilty convictions of the three men who planted and detonated the bomb: brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vincent Muscat.

Also central to the investigation was Melvin Theuma, the self-confessed middleman who brokered the murder, and whose secret recordings implicated senior figures.

Muscat and Theuma turned state witnesses in exchange for reduced sentences. Audio recordings played in court in other trials related to the case captured discussions about payments, planning, and attempts to derail the investigation.

In the years following the murder, public outrage mounted as it became clear that the investigation was being obstructed. In 2019, then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat resigned in disgrace after it emerged that he had close ties to Yorgen Fenech, charged with masterminding the assassination and currently awaiting trial.

The drawn-out legal process has laid bare systemic failings in Malta’s law enforcement institutions. A 2021 public inquiry concluded that the Maltese state had created a “culture of impunity” that enabled the assassination to occur.

The convictions of Agius and Vella represent a significant moment in Malta’s attempt to confront the legacy of the murder, but they do not bring closure.

Meanwhile, the spotlight remains firmly on Yorgen Fenech, whose trial could prove pivotal in exposing whether Malta’s political elite were complicit in silencing a journalist who refused to be silenced.

After eight years, the case remains a stark reminder of the dangers faced by those who challenge power—and the difficulty of holding that power to account.