A Maltese tycoon on trial for ordering the car-bomb assassination of an investigative journalist allegedly paid the hitmen’s legal bills—proving exactly how the wealthy rig the system to shield themselves from accountability.
When elites are threatened, they close ranks. Yorgen Fenech’s alleged financing of his assassins' defense is the ultimate insurance policy: you buy the hit, then you buy the silence. It’s the same revolving shield that protects the powerful everywhere, keeping the establishment safe from the people they rule.
Prosecutors say Fenech, heir to one of Malta’s largest fortunes, paid €150,000 to have Daphne Caruana Galizia murdered in 2017. After the bombing, he allegedly funneled another €5,000 in expenses, plus even more cash following their arrest. But the real damning detail is the legal defense. According to The Guardian, lead prosecutor Anthony Vella told the jury that Fenech financed the hitmen’s legal defense to the tune of over €400,000, routed through middleman Melvin Theuma to the bombers' brother, Mario. The Degiorgio brothers, who carried out the bombing, are now serving 40 years. Their defense was conveniently bankrolled by the very man who allegedly hired them.
Caruana Galizia was a thorn in the side of Malta’s ruling class, investigating corruption at the highest levels. NBC News reported she was tracking an offshore company called 17 Black, owned by Fenech, which she said was set up to channel corrupt payments to Malta’s leaders. For her trouble, the ruling party smeared her as a "witch" or "just a blogger," according to Vella, before hitmen attached a bomb—plus a container of petrol to ensure the kill—under her car seat, detonating it by remote control from an offshore yacht.
The assassination triggered a political earthquake, driving then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat from office in 2020, though NBC News notes he was never linked to the murder. Fenech, arrested on a yacht in what prosecutors call an escape bid, has been sitting on house arrest after posting a record €50 million bail.
Fenech denies the charges of complicity in voluntary homicide and criminal association. But the money trail tells a familiar story. When the people who order the hits can also afford to buy the hitmen's lawyers, the system isn't designed to deliver justice—it's designed to protect the people who run it.
