Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546498
ROBERT Abela is right about one thing: politicians should exercise caution when com- menting on an ongoing crim- inal process. This is even more pertinent in view of the prosecution's decision to appeal the verdict on procedural grounds and Judge Edwina Grima's order for police to examine trial ev- idence for possible proceed- ings against third parties. But caution has its limits. After nine years, the acquit- tal of Yorgen Fenech cannot simply be followed by anoth- er appeal for patience, anoth- er reminder that institutions must be allowed to work se- renely and another period of waiting. The jury has reached its ver- dict. That verdict must be re- spected. But it is also entirely legitimate — and necessary — to scrutinise and even challenge it. These two positions are not contradictory. Respect for the rule of law means accepting that Fenech is legally acquitted unless and until that position changes through the appeal process. It does not mean accepting that the verdict is beyond public discussion. Nor does it prevent journalists and cit- izens from asking how such a verdict was reached, and what it tells us about the in- vestigation and prosecution of Malta's most consequen- tial political murder. That scrutiny is particularly justified because Fenech ac- cording to the prosecution's case was the one who com- missioned Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination. This was the central alle- gation that brought the case to court. And yet eight of nine jurors found that the prosecution had not proved that case beyond reasonable doubt. That is an extraordinary outcome. It does not automatical- ly mean the jury was wrong. A jury is entitled to acquit where it has doubts about the evidence, even if the wider public finds the circumstanc- es deeply troubling. But it does mean there are serious questions that cannot simply be dismissed as an at- tack on the judiciary. The questions raised by the evidence The case against Fenech did not rest on a single allegation. It involved Melvin Theuma, recordings, messages, finan- cial transactions, statements made by Fenech himself and a wider body of evidence con- cerning the murder plot. The publication of record- ings from Fenech's 2019 in- terrogation has now placed particularly striking material back in the public domain. Fenech was recorded telling investigators that he had in- itially given Theuma the go- ahead and then, three days later, told him to stop. "First, I told him [Theuma] OK. After three days, I told him to stop. He told me he was already committed and paid the money." He claimed that the initial green light had come after Keith Schembri told him to proceed. Schembri has de- nied involvement. The recording does not overturn a jury verdict. Nor does it, by itself, establish criminal guilt. But it makes the verdict even harder to leave without scrutiny. One cannot help but ask: what did the jurors make of these statements? How did they assess Theuma's cred- ibility against Fenech's own words? Which parts of the prosecution's reconstruction of events did they reject? Where did they find rea- sonable doubt? Were there weaknesses in the way the evidence had been collect- ed, preserved or presented? Were there contradictions that proved decisive? These questions cannot be answered because juries by their very legal nature are not expected to explain their verdicts. But they bog- gle the mind. This episode should prompt a debate not on the noble concept of being judged by one's peers but on the absence of any obligation on juries to explain verdicts. But this is beyond the point. The major issue at stake is that nine years after the mur- der, the business tycoon ac- cused of giving the order has been found not guilty and in- stead of closure the country has been thrown back in to confusion. The political ramifications That is why one cannot simply relegate this case to a normal crime. Indeed, the acquittal was itself a political earthquake. Opposition leader Alex Borg was right to bring par- liament back to discuss the verdict. His intervention was timely. His decision to re- spect the jury while demand- ing answers is also a legiti- mate political position. But his decision to make Castille the centrepiece of his immediate response also car- ries a danger. Borg pointed at Castille during a protest and said that Daphne Caruana Gali- zia's assassination had been "planned in here" — meaning within the seat of govern- ment. The fact that the jury visited the Office of the Prime Min- ister because evidence con- cerning a meeting between Theuma and Keith Schembri related to that location was indeed extraordinary. The political significance of Cas- tille cannot simply be wished away. Yet there is a risk that the story becomes about wheth- er the murder was "planned in Castille" rather than about the prosecution's case against Fenech and why it failed. That can inadvertently shift the focus towards the alter- native narrative advanced by Fenech's defence team: that the real conspiracy lay else- where. The risk is that Yorgen Fenech's acquittal was based on a defence strategy to shift the blame on Schembri with- out providing any new shred of evidence that this was the case, in a way that at the end of the story we will end with nobody behind bars. Surely their case was made easier by witnesses hinting that Schembri was treated with kids gloves in the ini- tial phases of the investiga- tion. But the risk of blaming Castille is that one could end YORGEN FENECH TRIAL TUESDAY • 9 SEPTEMBER 2026 | maltatoday Respect for the 'rule of law' and institutional prudence does not require Malta to stop asking how the man accused of commissioning Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination walked free nine years after the murder. James Debono examines the political ramifications of a case in which Malta's institutions have failed to deliver answers Prudence must not become