"We are able today to say that in view of the elements in our possession on the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, all the people involved - perpetrators or accomplices - are now arrested and charged by the court".

It is with these words that the Commissioner of Police of Malta, Angelo Gafa commented, Wednesday, February 24, the indictment of two men for complicity in the murder in 2017 of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Maltese journalist who investigated corruption.

According to The Guardian, a total of seven men are now charged with aiding and abetting the crime.

In December 2017, three men with a heavy criminal record, the brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, as well as Vincent Muscat, were arrested and charged, suspected of having manufactured, planted and detonated the deadly bomb.

A fourth man linked to the case, Yorgen Fenech, a businessman who owns the company 17 Black, was arrested in 2019 on his yacht off the coast of Malta, as he tried to flee.

A taxi driver suspected of having been an intermediary accuses him of having been the main instigator of the murder, but the hearings concerning him have not yet started.

This week, Vincent Muscat, one of the men suspected of being an executioner, sharply pleaded guilty during a preliminary hearing on Tuesday February 23.

He was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Valletta court.

This is the first conviction in this case which shocked Malta and the rest of the world.

This about-face also led to the arrest on Tuesday of Jamie Vella and Robert Agius.

They had already been arrested in December 2017, but released.

The two men, suspected of having supplied the bomb that blew up the Maltese journalist's car, were charged on Wednesday.

They are known to the police for their links to organized crime on the island.

A "WikiLeaks all by itself"

Journalist blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, who denounced in her blog 'Running Commentary' the endemic corruption in this Mediterranean archipelago, a former British colony that entered the European Union in 2004, perished in a car bomb attack on October 16, 2017 .

That day, she signed her last article on her blog chronicling yet another corruption case targeting Maltese opposition officials.

"There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is dire," she wrote bitterly at the end of the post.

Less than an hour later, the 53-year-old journalist leaves her home in Bidnija, in the north of the island, behind the wheel of her car.

It only drives a hundred meters before the vehicle exploded.

The helpers will find the rusty carcass of the little Peugeot in a field by the side of the road, not far from his residence.

Immediately, the media relayed the assassination and a wave of indignation spreads in the country, before reaching Europe.

In shock, thousands of people gathered that very evening in Sliema, near Valletta, flowers and candles in hand.

For both family and public opinion, the criminal nature of the attack is beyond doubt.

The Maltese Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, regularly targeted by the work of Daphne Caruana, immediately qualifies this act as "barbaric" and promises to find his assassins.

The blogger no longer counted her enemies, nor the threats she was regularly subjected to.

In 1995 and 2006, her dog had been slaughtered and twice attempted to set her house on fire.

Through a nervous and sharp pen, the journalist brought to light the endemic corruption involving the local Maltese political class, from all sides. 

While investigating these files, the journalist lived in constant fear.

"My mother was afraid for her safety," said Matthew Caruana Galizia, the eldest of the journalist's three sons, in December 2019 during a hearing.

"She once told my brother that she felt like they were frying her alive," he added.

His blog written in English was one of the most widely read sites in the archipelago, often more than the traditional newspapers, to which he happened to contribute.

A “WikiLeaks all by itself”, according to the American magazine Politico, which had also classified it among the “28 personalities who are moving Europe” in 2017.

The Panama Papers

A few months before her death, she had looked at the Panama Papers.

This survey carried out by a hundred newspapers revealed in 2016 the participation of heads of state, billionaires and athletes, including the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Poutine, and footballers Michel Platini and Lionel Messi, in a system of international tax evasion built around the Panama-based firm Mossack Fonseca.

In the Maltese section, Daphne Caruana Galizia had unveiled several scandals splashing relatives of the head of government, Joseph Muscat.

It had shown that some Panamanian companies owned by then energy minister Konrad Mizzi and the prime minister's chief of staff, Keith Schembri, had received funds from a Dubai company, 17 Black.

These payments, which reached several thousand euros per day, were made in exchange for unspecified services.

The journalist consortium Daphne Project, which has resumed its investigations, revealed that the company was owned by businessman Yorgen Fenech.

As the France Info site explains, following the investigative work of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the wife of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Michelle, was also suspected of having opened an account in Panama to house bribes paid by Azerbaijan in exchange for allowing an Azeri bank to work in Malta. 

Cascading resignations

If for a long time the investigation into his assassination stalled, this affair allowed to undermine the Maltese political scene.

Yorgen Fenech's arrest has resulted in cascading resignations at the highest political level.

Joseph Muscat's chief of staff and childhood friend Keith Schembri, mentioned in the investigation as having received bribes from Yorgen Fenech, resigned in November 2019. According to law enforcement sources, Yorgen Fenech named Keith Schembri as the real "sponsor" of the murder.

The same day, Konrad Mizzi, who became Minister of Tourism and also implicated by Daphne Caruana, also resigned.

The Minister of the Economy, Chris Cardona has decided for his part to "put in reserve".

On December 1, 2019, under fire from criticism, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat finally announced his resignation, which became effective in January 2020. He was subsequently questioned by the police without however being the subject of an investigation.

For Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela, who replaced Joseph Muscat, the conviction of Vincent Muscat "represents one more step towards justice. One more step to establish the truth in this dark chapter for Malta and the family of Caruana Galizia. The journalist's family, meanwhile, said they were disappointed with the verdict, but nevertheless said they hoped that Vincent Muscat's conviction "would pave the way for total justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia".

With AFP

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