Eight years later: where are the enablers who created the climate for Daphne’s murder?

Despite it being eight years since her murder, justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia still feels out of reach.

In June, the last two individuals known to be directly connected to the execution of Daphne’s murder – car bomb suppliers Robert Agius and Jamie Vella – were sentenced to life imprisonment. Criminal trial proceedings against alleged murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech remain without a final due date.

While the individuals who were directly linked with the hit are all currently facing justice, former and current Cabinet ministers within the Labour Party have largely evaded any real consequences for their actions.

In this regard, the public inquiry, which investigated the state’s role in Daphne’s assassination, was categorical in its wording.

Describing the institutional inertia that gripped the police force and the office of the attorney general throughout the investigation of Daphne’s murder, the board placed the blame squarely at the government’s feet.

“The reasons for this total inaction by the authorities, which undoubtedly strongly led to the creation of a climate of impunity and therefore enabled the execution of the crime, are many and they are all censurable,” the board’s report states.

The report then goes on to consider the reasons for this inertia, acknowledging that there was a culture of fear and incompetence that was visible within the country’s law enforcement ranks.

“…the Board has information in hand, which it is not at liberty to reveal, in that it may prejudice the ongoing criminal proceedings in some way. It can, however, affirm the existence of a net of people who can control regulatory authorities, chosen and places as persons of trust of political power, with blind faith towards the persons who appointed them and answering directly to the centre of power at the Office of the Prime Minister.”

In remembrance of Daphne’s journalistic legacy, The Shift compiled a list of all the former/current Cabinet ministers who testified in that inquiry, summaries of what they said during their testimonies, and what they are doing now, eight years on from the day that scarred Malta forever.

Edward Scicluna

One of the most well-remembered lines from the early days of the public inquiry came from former finance minister Edward Scicluna, who had described how the nexus of power was concentrated in “Joseph Muscat’s kitchen Cabinet”, a reference to the disgraced former prime minister’s tight-knit relationship with his former chief of staff Keith Schembri and former energy minister Konrad Mizzi.

Scicluna’s infamous quip while testifying was emblematic of his attempts at distancing himself from the corruption scandals that defined Muscat’s administration.

While he did admit that there were serious shortcomings within the government’s public procurement system, Scicluna refused to acknowledge that he failed to use his position to scrutinise glaringly corrupt deals which went through his ministry for final approval.

Scicluna’s stated disapproval of these shortcomings evidently wasn’t enough to put him off from actively lobbying for another lucrative government position.

After he was named as one of the criminal suspects in the hospitals scandal, Scicluna was nonetheless reinstated as Governor of Malta’s Central Bank. He is expected to retire by December.

Chris Fearne

Much like his former colleague Edward Scicluna, Chris Fearne’s testimony during the public inquiry consisted of a narrative in which he sought to distance himself from Muscat, Schembri, and Mizzi.

Describing a “frosty” relationship with Schembri, Fearne had told the public inquiry that Schembri had actively worked against Fearne in his failed run for party leader and that Mizzi had not informed him about waivers he had signed on the government’s behalf in favour of former hospital concessionaires Steward Healthcare.

While downplaying Scicluna’s “kitchen Cabinet” claim, Fearne had admitted that he failed to look into the hospitals deal as much as he could have – an error of judgment which led to his resignation as health minister and a swift end to his aspirations to become an EU commissioner.

Fearne is now planning a political comeback and will be contesting in the upcoming general elections on behalf of the Labour Party.

Owen Bonnici

Bonnici’s testimony at the public inquiry was largely related to an article penned by Caruana Galizia. At the time, Bonnici served as education minister following a stint at the justice ministry in which he was found guilty of breaching the right to public protest after ordering the removal of Daphne’s protest memorial.

The article in question was about an email exchange between the architect of Malta’s golden passports scheme, Christian Kalin, and Muscat, Schembri, and Bonnici. Kalin emailed high-ranking government representatives to ask for permission to sue Daphne and former Nationalist Party MP Jason Azzopardi for libel.

During his testimony, Bonnici claimed that he had advised Kalin to “try and resolve issues amicably,” passing the buck onto Muscat after the board asked him whether he was aware that Muscat had approved Kalin’s proposal.

Five portfolio reshuffles later, Bonnici now runs a ministry that oversees national culture, lands, and local government.

José Herrera

Herrera was one of the few former Cabinet members who openly testified about advising Muscat to fire Schembri and Mizzi after the Panama Papers scandal exposed their hidden offshore companies.

Herrera had also claimed that Muscat did have a secretive internal power structure which featured Schembri and Mizzi at the top, but declined to name others who were involved, later adding that Cabinet did not discuss the details of the hospitals concession or the power station deal.

Much like Scicluna and Fearne, Herrera spent much of his time during the court hearing distancing himself from Muscat’s decision-making and downplaying the fact that he was a member of Cabinet since 2013, when he had ample opportunity to publicly challenge Muscat from a position of power.

Following his failure to get re-elected to Parliament in the 2022 general elections, Herrera is now regularly seen in criminal court representing clients.

In 2023, he was appointed chairperson of Malta’s golden passports agency, a term which is set to expire this month.

Michael Falzon

Falzon’s testimony during the public inquiry is mostly remembered for the social policy minister’s admission that he had “kept quiet” about the Panama Papers saga because he’d just been forced to resign from his role as then-parliamentary secretary over the Old Mint Street land appropriation scandal, in spite of the fact that he also said that he felt “very uncomfortable” about revelations related to the corrupt power station deal.

Falzon then went to great lengths to defend his decision to vote in favour of a vote of confidence in Mizzi, telling an incredulous board of inquiry that he would do so again because the decision was taken by the party as a whole.

In spite of his pockmarked track record as a member of Cabinet and an indelible link with the land expropriation scandal in Valletta involving Marco Gaffarena, Falzon continues to maintain an ironclad grip over a ministry with one of the biggest budgets in the entire administration.

Edward Zammit Lewis

After being forced to resign in the wake of leaked chats with Yorgen Fenech, in which Zammit Lewis candidly compared the average Labour Party voter to Ġaħan (a popular character in Maltese literature who is often ridiculed for his simplistic understanding of the world), the former justice minister seems desperate to avoid an ignominious fate.

His testimony during the public inquiry had, in fact, largely revolved around his friendship with Fenech, which Zammit Lewis defended as being in good faith.

Zammit Lewis had also claimed that he felt “betrayed” by his colleagues in Cabinet who, unlike him, had not entered politics “to do good.”

In spite of what he claimed during that testimony, Zammit Lewis remains an MP affiliated with the Labour Party’s parliamentary group, and now spends much of his time needling the government about the fact that Prime Minister Robert Abela pointedly refused to nominate him for a Cabinet post.

Alex Muscat

Formerly in charge of Malta’s golden passports scheme – which was formally declared incompatible with fundamental EU treaties by Europe’s highest court – Alex Muscat also previously served as Schembri’s second in command.

During his testimony before the public inquiry board, Muscat claimed that he had confronted Schembri about the Panama Papers scandal. While refusing to divulge more details, Muscat claimed that he had urged Schembri and their former boss to “come clean.”

At the same time, the former parliamentary secretary had defended a questionable consultancy agreement he had signed with Nexia BT, the accounting firm at the heart of that administration’s biggest corruption scandals, claiming he saw nothing wrong with it because he was unaware of any illegalities committed by the firm.

Following Prime Minister Robert Abela’s decision to exclude Muscat from Cabinet, the former parliamentary secretary now maintains a relatively low profile as a backbencher MP for the Labour Party.

Chris Cardona

In his role as former economy minister, Chris Cardona was one of the key signatories who, on the government’s behalf, had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the original concessionaires of the hospitals deal, Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH).

This singular decision continues to inextricably link Cardona to the core of the government’s corrupt modus operandi, with multiple reports attesting to his repeated court testimony on the subject across the multitude of cases currently making their way through the judicial system.

During his testimony before the public inquiry, Cardona claimed that the MOU was non-binding and equivalent to a promise-of-sale agreement. The agreement was signed despite the government being well aware that due diligence about VGH had exposed grave shortcomings.

Cardona would go on to contradict his own assertions about whether he actually read the document or not when testifying during the hospitals concession case, raising questions about his version of events.

Like his former colleagues, Cardona was quietly kept onside by awarding him lucrative government consultancies, with the prime minister defending his decision to gift contracts to the only former Cabinet member who was linked with a failed, earlier plot to assassinate Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Konrad Mizzi

Konrad Mizzi was the only one in Joseph Muscat’s triumvirate who refused to testify in front of the public inquiry, choosing instead to read out a statement in which he explicitly said he never took kickbacks or bribes and that he always did everything with Joseph Muscat’s approval.

Since then, Mizzi spends several of his mornings shuffling back and forth from court, largely in relation to his key role as former health and energy minister when the hospitals concession and power station deals were done.

Last week, the court temporarily lifted restrictions on Mizzi’s ability to access his funds in order to pay back €75,000 worth of pending bills. Konrad Mizzi now claims to work as a consultant. He denies any accusations of wrongdoing.

Keith Schembri

Joseph Muscat’s right hand man and de facto fixer within Castille, Keith Schembri is also currently among the accused in the hospitals concession case.

During a combative testimony before the public inquiry, Schembri constantly downplayed concerns about the legitimacy of the deals he directly oversaw on the express instructions of Muscat, rebuffing criticism about the power station deal and failed plans to go into business with Yorgen Fenech after leaving politics, as well as his ownership of offshore companies which were directly tied to the deal.

After exhausting the inquiry board’s patience with a long list of frail explanations for his direct links with Nexia BT, former judge Joseph Said Pullicino had remarked that Schembri’s testimony was “not credible.”

Though Schembri and his former colleague, Mizzi, both have their fingerprints on most of the government’s corrupt deals at the time, Schembri continues to deploy the kind of scorched-earth litigation he was known for during his time as chief of staff.

Just last week, Schembri’s lawyers filed a judicial protest against the forensic analysts who assisted inquiring magistrate Gabriella Vella in her inquiry about the hospital’s deal, claiming that they misappropriated millions from the inquiry at the taxpayers’ expense.

Joseph Muscat

If Schembri’s testimony before the public inquiry was combative, Joseph Muscat had spent five hours attempting to dismantle the legitimacy of the public inquiry in its entirety, describing it as a “failed” inquiry that had “deteriorated into a political exercise.”

It is a playbook that Muscat continues to deploy to this day whenever any corruption scandals end up resurfacing as fully fledged court cases.

Much like Schembri, Muscat has repeatedly attempted to derail criminal proceedings against him in relation to the hospitals scandal, often by alleging a breach of human rights due to claims of misconduct by the inquiring magistrate and/or the experts who were tasked with carrying out the investigation.

During the criminal trial, Muscat was slapped with one of the biggest freezing orders out of the couple of dozen accused in the hospitals case: €30 million.

In the meantime, Muscat continues to attempt to launder his reputation through his role as President of the Malta Premier League, despite the latest sponsorship deal with an Armenian brand, YoHealth, already attracting scrutiny due to links with a businessman accused of breaching anti-money laundering laws.