Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546491
What we have witnessed is worthy of a Netflix series. Like OJ Simpson, Yorgen Fenech was seen as guilty by every- one but not by the people that counted – the jury. What is clear is the Attor- ney Generals' office needs to be reformed to the extent the prosecution turns to seasoned lawyers from the private sec- tor who are contracted to car- ry out crucial prosecutions, and not budding lawyers or armchair prosecutors who have not been battle tried. Let me declare from the onset that if I were a juror, I would be very disappointed with the depositions of many of the witnesses, but more with the prosecution which I found unappealing and bor- ing. But, nevertheless I would still cast my decision and find Yorgen Fenech guilty as hell on two counts. I have remained silent dur- ing this jury case and opted not to write at all. I did this for two reasons: the firs because I knew selective chats where I am an active interlocutor would be exhumed in court. They had already been leaked years back by Jason Azzopardi to a particular blog website. The second reason I chose not to write was because I was also listed as a main witness by the Yorgen Fenech defence team, but not called up at the last minute. This was proba- bly because what I had to say was not beneficial to the Yor- gen Fenech cause. But this column is not about me, but rather about the fail- ure of the Maltese police and the Attorney Generals' office to bring to justice a person who was behind the murder and an accomplice to a mur- der. But to understand what real- ly happened in the last 55 days or more, one needs to stop for a few minutes and disengage from all the noise and think objectively. If no one really minds, I am going to say it as it is. To start with, we must remember that the jurors were selected from the general public. Many peo- ple did not share the emotion- al sorrow for Daphne Caruana Galizia, and I am sure the ju- rors picked probably reflected this. It is hard for me to say it, but Caruana Galizia, for all her courage and intrepid journal- ism, was not liked by many Maltese who saw her as a gos- sip monger and too personal in her writings. The prosecution seems to have forgotten this point. I also think certain pick-and- choose facts presented to the jury mirrored too much of an obsessive agenda by the Caruana Galizia lawyers with the fact that anyone dealing with Fenech in the past was as guilty as hell. Revealing chats which had nothing to do with the mur- der did not go well with the jurors. Below I have listed a num- ber of reasons which I believe led to Yorgen Fenech walking away from court on Wednes- day a free man: 1. The idea that justice was something for the family on- ly, is wrong. Seeing justice in this case is a must for socie- ty in general. The family were the victims and are crying for justice, but so is Malta. A just and fair society calls out for benchmarks, and that trans- lates into one high standard that clearly demands the per- petrators of this heinous mur- der must be punished for their actions. 8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 SEPTEMBER 2026 OPINION Malta's OJ Simpson Saviour Balzan Founder and owner of Media Today, publisher of MaltaToday, he is a TV host and pollster O.J. Simpson's famous courtroom demonstration trying on a pair of bloody leather gloves during his 1995 murder trial of which he was When this country prayed for closure, the exact opposite happened: a festering wound suddenly opened again and with it a swarm of flies eager to feast on the pus and decaying meat. Yorgen Fenech arriving at the Portomaso Marina where he was arrested while trying to flee Malta on his yacht in 2019 (Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday)