This column first appeared in Malta Today

On Wednesday evening, I forgot my phone at home, which rarely happens. So when I first heard the news from the friends I was with, I thought surely that can’t be right. They showed me their phone and there it was, spelled out in black and white. 

Like most of the nation, I was beyond shocked at the not guilty verdict in the trial of Yorgen Fenech.  The man charged with complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and of criminal association, was cleared on both counts and walked out of court a free man.  

Since then, online chatter has reverberated with the same question: how could this possibly have happened in the face of all the damning evidence?  Personally, I have been too dumbfounded to write anything on social media. After the initial disbelief on hearing the news, instead I have just been reading the comments, trying to absorb the implications of this very unexpected turn of events. The public’s reaction, the statements by the family and the media commentary have all agreed on one thing: this verdict has left us with more questions than answers. 

The two different narratives which resonated throughout this trial have been brought sharply into focus. The general consensus is that Fenech should have been sentenced for his involvement (of which there was ample evidence), while another part of public opinion agreed with the defence’s argument that he was a mere scapegoat, being used as the fall guy, while the real mastermind got off Scott free, and hence it is only right for Fenech to have been acquitted.  

In fact, there were constant arguments on FB between Daphne’s family and well-meaning supporters who could not understand why the family were focussing solely on Fenech but not clamouring for Keith Schembri’s head as well. It was explained over and over again, that it was Fenech who was on trial, and the Prosecution could only proceed against him because that was the concrete evidence they had in hand.  If so many people following the case from the outside could not grasp this, then it is no wonder that the seeds of reasonable doubt which were so expertly sowed by the defence team, apparently worked.  

There has also been lots of talk about the validity of the jury system, the jurors themselves and the inevitable speculation about what could have happened in that room as they were deliberating for them to come out with an almost unanimous verdict.  Were they threatened, intimidated, afraid of the consequences, bought off?  Did they harbour resentment against Daphne?  Did they feel Yorgen had “suffered” enough by spending 5 years in prison awaiting trial? (He was released on bail in 2025 after his aunt who acted as his guarantor, temporarily transferred her 15.4% shareholding in the family business, with an estimated value of just over €52m, to the government.) These and other theories have been bandied about all over the Internet.  

However, after two gruelling months of the often mind-numbing court sittings and after being sequestered against such measly compensation, I find it rather unfair that the jurors are now being singled out. None of us were there, we do not know, and cannot presume to know what pressures they were under.  It all remains conjecture at this point, unless proven otherwise. These were just your ordinary people, plucked out of obscurity to pass judgement on arguably Malta’s most notorious murder case.  At one point, some people were demanding that the jury should be allowed to go home every night, rather than be “kidnapped by the state”, but how would that have played out?  If many are now saying that someone “got” to the sequestered jury or that they were unduly influenced, how much worse would it have been if they had access to family, friends and media reports?  

During the trial I also kept seeing suggestions from the public that the whole thing should have been televised, something which I do not agree with it all. What good would that have done except to sensationalise the whole thing even more, turning it into a veritable circus? It was bad enough that people were calling it a Netflix series simply from what we read from the live blogs; I can’t even begin to imagine what the public reaction would have been if the proceedings had been shown on TV. We were reading about how this horrific murder was cold-bloodedly planned and executed and the jury’s task was to try and determine whether the man in the dock was directly complicit in ordering the assassination. This was not something designed for our daily entertainment to alleviate the boredom of this long, hot summer.  

In any case, televising a murder trial is no guarantee of justice being served as the infamous case of OJ Simpson proved.  That trial held the US in thrall for over 8 months in 1995. As it unfolded, black Americans started to root for the former football star despite all the evidence that he had murdered his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman (who had intervened to try and stop the attack), because the defence team played the race card to great effect.  OJ was acquitted after his defence successfully created reasonable doubt while showing that the prosecution had bungled the case by mishandling the chain of evidence and possible racism by the police.  He eventually spent 9 years in prison, not for the murders but for leading an armed robbery and a kidnapping in Las Vegas.  In 2024, 6 years after his release, OJ Simpson died of cancer.

At this very moment, another murder trial is being televised in the United States: that of Lindsay Clancy, a mother charged with murdering her three children, who is claiming temporary insanity due to postpartum psychosis.  She attempted suicide on the night of her children’s deaths, leaving her paralysed and in a wheelchair. At the time of writing, the jurors were still deadlocked after 6 days of deliberation. The foreman told the judge in a note that a single juror would not follow the court’s instructions about reasonable doubt and was holding up the verdict (which has to be unanimous).  By the time you read this, the verdict will probably be out. But just as happened with the Yorgen Fenech trial, my feed has been replete with people debating, speculating and coming to their own judgement of whether the mother should be found guilty or not, because of her mental state.  The televised aspect of the trial has simply added fuel to the online judge and jury.  Does streaming such trials  promote more transparency and accountability or does it simply provide more material for water cooler gossip?

I personally think the court reporters from Malta’s major newspapers and news websites did a very good job of conveying what was happening in court and should be complimented for the hours they put in, which must have taken their toll.  I doubt televising would have made any difference because the ultimate decision was in the hands of the jurors.

So what happens now? Well, it seems we have not heard the last of this murder trial. The prosecution is apparently going to appeal the verdict, challenging it on the grounds relating to the process itself and seeking a retrial. According to law, “prosecutors will have to identify legal or procedural grounds which they believe were serious enough to have potentially affected the verdict.”  The Court of Criminal Appeal is made up of three judges.

The presiding Judge Edwina Grima has also ordered evidence heard during the trial to be sent to the police commissioner to determine whether criminal proceedings should be taken against third parties. The trial proceedings are also to be incorporated into ongoing magisterial inquiries connected to the murder.  All eyes are on the police now to do their duty, although after what emerged during this trial, I don’t blame the public for being completely disillusioned and cynical when it comes to criminal investigations.  It would be nothing short of a miracle if the investigators had to prove us wrong. 

It is only just that, after everything we have heard in court, the outcome should not be left dangling in mid-air as seemed to be the case on Wednesday evening when the verdict was announced to a bewildered, flabbergasted public. Justice has still not been served and too much time has already been wasted without clear-cut answers to so many unanswered questions. 

It cannot be that “no one” orchestrated Daphne’s murder.  All those who were behind it, no matter who they are, need to face the consequences for what they did – anything less than that is unthinkable.