“150000 euros to kill”, shocking details of the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galisizia in Malta

A handshake, 150,000 euros in cash and an encrypted message: Maltase prosecutors on Thursday filed their case against a tycoon charged with ordering the murder of a prominent investigative journalist, reports Euronews, broadcast Periscope

Jorgen Fenech is accused of organising the murder of Daphne Carwana Gallizia in 2017 in a case that shocked the island nation and brought down a previous government.

Following the defendant's attempt to escape on his yacht in 2019 and many procedural delays, the Fenech trial finally opened on Wednesday.

He denies the accusations.

According to the indictment, quoted by the Times of Malta, the 44-year-old commissioned one of his knowledge to find people capable of getting rid of journalist and blogger, saying he initially feared she would publish revelations about his uncle.

This acquaintance contacted two brothers, Alfred and George Degiorgio, agreeing with them for a 150,000-euro prize, which he says gave Fenech in cash in a brown envelope, according to an account by Amphora Media, the journalism platform of the Daphne Carwana Galizia Foundation.

The two brothers, each sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2022, spent the summer of 2017 planning the murder of a journalist assisted by an accomplice.

According to this associate, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2021, the three initially intended to hit the journalist in her home with sniper rifles before deciding at the end for a car bomb.

53-year-old Carwana Gallizia, married and mother of three, was killed on October 16, 2017, near her home.

The killers used an encrypted message to detonate the explosive device hidden last night under the driver's seat of her 108 driver.

Yorgen Fenech, who won a multimillion-euro contract with the Malaysian state for the construction of a gas power plant, was arrested on his yacht board in 2019 while trying to leave Malta.

Carwana Gallizia had discovered corruption at the highest level in the country, shed light on the dark ties between Malta's business and political elites.

The death of the renowned journalist and blogger, described as"WikiLeaks with a woman", caused worldwide outrage and placed Malta, the smallest member state of the European Union, in the spotlight because of its apparent failures in rule of law.

Her murder also led to then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's resignation in January 2020, following widespread anger and mass protests for his perceived efforts to protect friends and allies from the investigation.

The trial is expected to last several weeks. /Periscope