Trial of brothers accused of murdering journalist begins
Two brothers, George, and Alfred Degiorgio were on trial in Malta on Friday for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist, exactly five years after she was blown up by a car bomb.
George and Alfred Degiorgio will face life in prison if they are found guilty of planting and detonating the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia on October 16, 2017.
They will be judged by a nine-person jury, which was selected on Friday.
Caruana Galizia was one of Malta’s most well-known writers. She published corruption allegations on her blog on a regular basis.
She was working on a massive data leak concerning a power station project at the time of her murder.
The Degiorgio brothers were arrested and charged with the killing in December 2017, alongside a third suspect, Vince Muscat, who last year opted to plead guilty and turn state’s witness.
The prosecutors said that the three men placed a bomb beneath the driver’s seat of Caruana Galizia’s car.
George Degiorgio then detonated it using a mobile phone from a boat at sea, as the other two men watched from a vantage point close to Caruana Galizia’s home.
The explosion destroyed her car and her body parts flying everywhere, a court has heard.
Prosecutors have also charged another man, business tycoon Yorgen Fenech, with having commissioned the assassination.
Meanwhile, Mr Fenech is a shareholder in the power station project that Caruana Galizia was investigating.
However, charges against Mr Fenech are based on testimony provided by a taxi driver, Melvin Theuma, who says he served as a middleman between Mr Fenech and the Degiorgio brothers.
Mr Theuma has been given a pardon in exchange for his testimony, while Mr Fenech denies all charges.
(dpa/NAN)
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