A Maltese businessman accused of being the mastermind of the 2017 car bomb killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been acquitted.
Yorgen Fenech, 44, was indicted in 2021 on charges of complicity and criminal conspiracy.
Prosecutors accused him of being the mastermind of the killing and of having ordered and paid for it.
He pleaded not guilty, with jurors on Wednesday voting 8-1 in favour of acquitting him not guilty on both counts.
A portrait of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is held up during a protest on Wednesday night. Pic: Reuters
The relatives of Caruana Galizia wept in a packed courtroom in Valletta as the verdict was announced.
In a statement later posted to Facebook, the family of Caruana Galizia said the verdict denied her the “justice she deserves.”
“Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed.
“Lasting justice means no person should ever face the same risks again,” the statement said.
“Our country failed to protect Daphne. It owes it to her to prevent other lives being lost.”
Caruana Galizia, 53, was killed on 16 October 2017, by a car bomb that was detonated while she was driving near her home.
She had written extensively about suspected corruption in political and business circles in Malta.
The jury heard that Fenech had wanted Caruana Galizia killed because she was about to reveal information about him.
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Fenech was involved in a consortium that won a controversial contract with the Maltese government to build a power station.
His arrest in 2019 sparked a series of mass protests in the country that culminated with the then-prime minister Joseph Muscat’s resignation.
An independent inquiry into the killing published in 2021 concluded that the Maltese state “has to bear responsibility” for the assassination due to a culture of impunity that emanated from the highest levels of government.
Three men have been convicted of carrying out the killing and two others for supplying the bomb after earlier trials and are now serving lengthy jail sentences.
