Panama papirer journalist dafne Caruana Galizia blev sprængt i luften i hendes bil - lejemordere fængslet, jury nu har den påståede geni

Maltesisk undersøgende journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, der blev beskrevet som en "en-kvinde WikiLeaks" efter hun ledede Panama Papers undersøgelse, blev dræbt om eftermiddagen den 16. oktober 2017 af en bilbombe detoneret nær hendes hjem i Bidnija.

Galizia’s career was devoted to exposing establishment corruption, and her most recent work revealed that Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides had connections to offshore companies tied to the sale of Maltese passports, and that they had allegedly received payments from the government of Azerbaijan, according to a Rapport fra Vogteren.

Under en pressekonference om angrebet anerkendte Muscat Galizias arbejde og sagde: "Alle ved, at fru Caruana Galizia var en hård kritiker af mig, både politisk og personligt, men ingen kan retfærdiggøre denne barbariske handling på nogen måde".

Galizias søn var uoverbevist. Han kaldte Muscat en "klovn", som udnyttede øjeblikket ved "at afgive udtalelser til parlamentet om en journalist, han brugte over et årti på at dæmonisere og chikanere", kun få timer efter hendes død.

"Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Chris Cardona, Konrad Mizzi, justitsministeren og den lange liste over politikommissærer, der ikke gjorde noget: du er medskyldig. Du er ansvarlig for dette", Matthew Caruana Galizia skrev i en Facebook-indlæg der navngav en lang liste over valgte embedsmænd.

My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists. But she was also targeted because she was the only person doing so. This is what happens when the institutions of the state are incapacitated: the last person left standing is often a journalist. Which makes her the first person left dead.

Daphne Caruana Galizia will be remembered as a remarkable investigative journalist who risked her life to expose corruption among the elite. One of her most notable endeavors was helping bring the revelations of the Panama Papers to light — a leak of 11.5 million documents that detailed financial information from more than 200,000 offshore accounts and exposed how the wealthy and powerful across dozens of countries hid money through shell companies.

Matthew Caruana Galizia er selv en undersøgende journalist, der arbejdede sammen med sin mor og var en del af det internationale team bag Panama Papers. Han skrev, at han var i nærheden, da hans mors bil eksploderede med en så kraftig eksplosion, at den kastede bilen og hende ind i en nærliggende mark.

I am never going to forget, running around the inferno in the field, trying to figure out a way to open the door, the horn of the car still blaring, screaming at two policemen who turned up with a single fire extinguisher to use it. They stared at me. ‘I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do,’ one of them said. I looked down and there were my mother’s body parts all around me. I realized they were right, it was hopeless.

Hr. Galizia sagde, at han fortalte politiet på stedet, "Min mor er i bilen. Hun er død. Hun er død på grund af din inkompetence".

Mens nogle kaldte Daphne Caruana Galizias død "tragisk", sagde hendes søn, at han mente "det var ikke noget almindeligt mord, og det var ikke tragisk". Han sagde, at når der er blod og ild omkring dig, er det krig. Vi er et folk i krig mod staten og organiseret kriminalitet, som er blevet uadskillelige ".

Hr. Galizia hævdede også, at "en af de politibetjente, der formodes at efterforske hendes mord, Ramon Mifsud, udstationeret på Facebook," Alle får, hvad de fortjener, ko møg! Føler sig glad:) "

Yes, this is where we are: a mafia state where you can now change your gender on your ID card (thank God for that!) but where you will be blown to pieces for exercising your basic freedoms. Only for the people who are supposed to have protected you to instead be celebrating it. How did we get here? A culture of impunity has been allowed to flourish by the government in Malta. It is of little comfort for the Prime Minister of this country to say that he will ‘not rest’ until the perpetrators are found, when he heads a government that encouraged that same impunity.

Hr. Galizia beskyldte Muscat for at besætte sit kontor, politiet og domstolene med skurke, idioter og inkonkurrents. "Hvis institutionerne allerede arbejdede, ville der ikke være noget mord at undersøge - og mine brødre og jeg ville stadig have en mor", Han skrev.

Hvor sagen foreligger

In the years that followed, the family’s accusations of state complicity were substantially vindicated. A public inquiry concluded in July 2021 that the Maltese state bore responsibility for creating a “culture of impunity” that enabled the murder, and it found that the government had failed to recognize and neutralize the risks to her life. Mounting public protests over the botched investigation forced Joseph Muscat to resign as prime minister in January 2020, after his chief of staff Keith Schembri was questioned in the probe.

The men who carried out the bombing have been brought to justice one by one. Brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio each received 40-year sentences in October 2022 after pleading guilty to procuring, planting, and detonating the device; an appeals court upheld those terms in November 2023. Vince Muscat (no relation to the former prime minister) pleaded guilty in 2021 and was sentenced to 15 years after turning state’s witness, and self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma received a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for his testimony. In June 2025, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella were convicted of supplying the military-grade explosives used in the bomb and sentenced to life imprisonment; the Court of Appeal confirmed those life sentences on January 21, 2026, rejecting claims that the terms were excessive.

The alleged mastermind finally faced a jury. Businessman Yorgen Fenech — a powerful hotelier with close ties to senior government figures, arrested in November 2019 aboard his yacht as it left Malta — denies the charges of complicity in murder and criminal association. Prosecutors allege he supplied roughly €150,000 to pay the hitmen and gave the order to detonate the bomb. After more than five years in pre-trial detention, Fenech was released on bail in February 2025. He lost a last-minute constitutional bid to halt the proceedings, and on July 1, 2026 his trial opened at Malta’s Criminal Court in Valletta. The attorney general is seeking life. By mid-August the trial had passed its 36th sitting, with Theuma on the stand for consecutive days. On August 3, 2026, Daphne’s son Matthew Caruana Galizia testified about the day of the bombing. On August 21, Judge Edwina Grima rejected a defense bid to dissolve the jury, and Fenech took the stand in his own defense — unusual for a murder accused — and told jurors he never ordered the killing. Over four days on the stand he went further. He said police had framed him, and when Judge Edwina Grima asked who the real mastermind was, he named Keith Schembri, Muscat’s former chief of staff. Schembri has not been charged with the murder. Prosecutor Godwin Cini told Fenech his fingerprints were all over the case. In closings the Crown said Fenech had his hands stained with Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blood. Defence lawyer Charles Mercieca spent two days on what he called the hidden hand and invited jurors to swap Fenech’s name for Schembri’s. On August 31, 2026 — day 53 — the judge began summing up. The jury has the case. No verdict has been returned. Press-freedom groups note that many of the public inquiry’s institutional reform recommendations remain unimplemented, and that full justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia will not be served until everyone responsible for her assassination is behind bars.

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