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VALETTA, Oct. 14 (AP) A judge in Malta sentenced two brothers to 40 years in prison each after they abruptly changed course and pleaded guilty Friday to the car bomb murder of an anti-corruption journalist. The incident shocked Europe and sparked angry protests. Malta.
George DeGiogio, 59, and Alfred DeGiogio, 57, pleaded not guilty just hours before their trial in Valletta court began.
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They were charged with planting a bomb that destroyed Daphne Caruana Galizia’s car on October 16, 2017, while she was driving near her home.
Caruana Galizia investigates alleged corruption in the political and business circles of the small EU country, a financial haven in the Mediterranean.
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Trial Judge Edwina Grima, who retired after a plea change, handed down her verdict hours later.
The brothers could face up to life sentences. As a member of the European Union, Malta does not allow the death penalty.
Prosecutors claim the brothers were employed by a top Maltese businessman with links to the government. The businessman has been charged and will be tried separately.
On the eve of the trial, the DeGeorge brothers denied the allegations. A third suspect, Vincent Muscat, avoided trial after earlier commuting his guilty plea to guilty. Muscat is serving a 15-year sentence.
But at the start of Friday’s trial, Alfred Degiorgio pleaded not guilty while his brother declared him speechless, which the court interpreted as an innocent plea.
It is not clear why the accused suddenly changed himself.
During the prosecution’s opening arguments, the state argued they had evidence involving cellphones that linked the defendants to the bombing.
The brothers tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a pardon in exchange for larger alleged conspirators, including an unidentified former minister.
The bomb was placed under the driver’s seat, and the explosion was powerful enough to send the wreckage of the car over a wall and into a field.
Malta’s top investigative journalist Caruana Galizia, 53, has written extensively on her website “Running Commentary” about alleged corruption in the political and business world of the Mediterranean island nation, an attractive Financial safe haven.
One of her targets was then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle, whom she accused of owning offshore companies in tax havens revealed in the Panama Papers leak. But she also targeted the opposition. When she was killed, she faced more than 40 defamation lawsuits.
Two years after the murders, the arrest of a senior businessman with links to senior government officials sparked a series of mass protests in the country that forced Muscat to resign.
Yorgen Fenech was indicted in 2019 for participating in a killing by ordering or abetting a crime, inciting another to commit a crime or promising a reward after the fact. He was also charged with conspiracy to murder. Fenech has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
A date for his trial has yet to be set.
Self-confessed go-between, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for testimony against Fenech and other alleged masterminds. Two men, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius, have been charged with supplying the bombs, but their trials have yet to begin.
During the morning meeting before the lunch break, Deputy Public Prosecutor Filippo Galizia Farrugia told the court that an unknown person had asked Theuma to find someone to kill Caruana Galizia. Galea Farrugia said Theuma allegedly approached one of the Degiorgio brothers and negotiated a payment of 150,000 euros ($146,500).
Galea Farrugia also stated that a rifle was initially chosen as the murder weapon, but it was later changed to a bomb. Prosecutors also said a mobile phone – one of three carried by George Degiorgio on a cabin cruiser in Malta’s Grand Harbour – caused the explosion.
A 2021 public inquiry report found that the Maltese state “must be held accountable for Caruana Galizia’s murder” due to a culture of impunity at the highest levels of the government.
Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic denounced the “lack of effective results in building accountability after five years”.
In a letter to current Prime Minister Robert Abella, the commissioner said there was an urgent need to protect journalists in Malta and cited a defamation case against Caruana-Galizia’s family. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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