Two brothers, George and Alfred Degiorgio, accused of murdering Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017, were sentenced on Friday October 14 to forty years in prison. “They declare themselves guilty”had said earlier in the day their lawyer, Simon Micallef Stafrace.
Her clients, prosecuted for murder and criminal conspiracy, were suspected of having manufactured, planted and detonated the bomb that killed the journalist in her car, who denounced in her blog, Running Commentary, the endemic corruption in this small Mediterranean archipelago, a a former British colony that entered the European Union in 2004. His death at the age of 53, on October 16, 2017, had greatly shaken the smallest state in the European Union and horrified its neighbors.
“There are corrupt people everywhere”
Several representatives of press freedom associations, including Reporters Without Borders and the European Center for Press and Media Freedom, were present at the trial in Valletta. The journalist was killed near her home just hours after posting this message: “There are corrupt people everywhere. The situation is desperate. »
The Degiorgio brothers said they were ready last year to implicate a former minister in exchange for a pardon, which they were ultimately refused. George Degiorgio had already first confessed to the assassination during an interrogation in July, calling it a “just business”.
A third man already sentenced
A third man implicated in this murder, Vincent Muscat, who pleaded guilty last year, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The wealthy businessman suspected of ordering the murder, Yorgen Fenech, has not yet been tried. He denies any involvement.
The death of Daphne Caruana Galizia had caused a scandal in the country, leading among other things to the resignation, in January 2020, of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, accused of trying to cover up his friends and political allies splashed by this murder. According to a public inquiry, the results of which were published in 2021, the Maltese state bears some responsibility for the murder of the journalist, in particular for having created a “climate of impunity” for those who wanted to silence her.