Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546553
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 SEPTEMBER 2026 OPINION Yorgen Fenech trial say about Malta? the fact that Fenech had an extremely powerful motive to kill Daph- ne. In February 2017, Daphne revealed the existence of a mysterious Dubai company, 17 Black. Daphne did not reveal the ownership of the company, however in the com- ments section beneath the ar- ticle, Daphne made the connection between 17 Black and Electro- gas Limited (the owner of the new Maltese power plant) and Yorgen Fenech. At the time of the murder, she had not yet publicly established the full significance of 17 Black, its ownership or its financial con- nections. These only emerged after her death. In 2018, it was made public that 17 Black was a target client for the Panama companies associated with Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. In November 2018, Yor- gen Fenech was identified as the owner of 17 Black. As confirmed by the Carua- na Galizia family, Daphne had been working on uncovering the ownership and significance of this company. Had she suc- ceeded, she would have ex- posed Fenech, personally, to a corruption scandal of gargan- tuan proportions. The revelation of the exist- ence of 17 Black in February 2017, provided Fenech with a powerful personal reason to fear the results of Caruana Gal- izia's investigation. Schembri also possibly had a motive to silence Caruana Galizia, how- ever his interests converged with Fenech's and his potential involvement is certainly not an alternative to Fenech's. Given that the defence strat- egy rested so heavily upon discrediting Theuma and in- troducing Keith Schembri as an alternative centre of grav- ity, I struggle to understand how eight jurors out of nine arrived at an acquittal. Could eight people genuinely recon- cile Fenech's insistence that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the murder plot? Could they confront Fenech's testimony with Fenech's own secretly recorded words and conclude that the contradic- tions were sufficient to create reasonable doubt rather than to reinforce the prosecution's case? One possibility is that by at- tacking Theuma's character, multiplying alternative narra- tives and repeatedly directing atten- tion towards Schembri, the defence generated sufficient doubt for the jury to lose sight of the cumulative evidential picture. But the extraordinary nature of the verdict should inevitably prompt us to raise a more uncomfortable question; whether factors lying beyond the evidential record could have influenced the manner in which that evidence was per- ceived. That question must be approached with considerable caution. A survey, personal consequences There is no evidence present- ly, that any juror was threat- ened or bribed or improperly contacted, and Fenech's ac- quittal, however inexplicable one may find, is not per se, evidence of jury tampering. Yet direct interference is not the only mechanism through which power can affect civic judgement. Fenech was pre- sented during the trial as a man of enormous wealth and connections, while the pro- ceedings themselves exposed the jury to allegations and evidence concerning crimi- nal networks, political con- nections and the acquisition of weapons through the dark web. It is therefore legitimate to ask, whether perceptions of power and possible personal consequences can affect de- cision-making in a society as small and densely intercon- nected as Malta? Additionally, the revelations surrounding a pre-trial survey commissioned by Fenech's un- cle, Ray Fenech, warrant serious scrutiny. Especially because it was conducted after the list of prospective jurors had al- ready been published. The survey asked respondents questions directly related to Fenech, Caruana Galizia and the murder case. Judge Grima herself rebuked the defence over the timing of the survey and its failure to disclose it. Lawyer Jason Azzopardi alleg- es, on the basis of information supplied directly to him by people who said they had re- ceived the calls, that many of those contacted appeared on the official list of prospective jurors. He says that around 50 people came forward. Math- ematically the chances of a purely coincidental overlap between even 10 people cho- sen for the survey and at the same time featuring in the shortlist of the 250 potential jurors is so low this is extraor- dinarily unlikely, let alone 50 or more. It is worth pointing out that so far there is no hard evidence that the jury was im- properly influenced, much less that they explain the eventu- al 8–1 verdict. Nevertheless, a survey commissioned by a close relative of an accused, prepared with the involvement of his defence team, asking questions about the accused and his murder trial after the prospective juror list had al- ready been published, inevita- bly raises legitimate questions, particularly when allegations subsequently emerge that some of those contacted were themselves on that list. Yet even if every suspicion concerning the survey were ul- timately disproved, the central question posed by the verdict would remain. Perhaps the ex- planation does not lie in some dramatic conspiracy at all. Perhaps the more uncomfort- able explanation lies partly in us. One of our undergraduate students, in her dissertation examined why Maltese young adults, who were aware of en- vironmental problems, nev- ertheless frequently remained outside organised activism. While its findings cannot sim- ply be transplanted into a jury room as an explanation for this verdict, some of the mechanisms iden- tified raise wider questions about Maltese civic culture. People could care about an issue while deciding that publicly assum- ing responsibility for it was not worth the uncertain benefit and potential personal cost. This research concerned environmental activism. But the broader question it rais- es is difficult to avoid: What happens to civic responsibil- ity when citizens believe that confronting entrenched power carries personal risk while pro- ducing uncertain results? The easiest conclusion from the Caruana Galizia saga has always been that Malta was betrayed by its institutions. There is ample evidence for that conclusion. But institu- tions are not extra-terrestrial objects imposed upon us. They are staffed by Maltese people, sustained by Maltese political culture and ultimately em- bedded within Maltese socie- ty. Police officers, politicians, civil servants, businesspeople, journalists, witnesses and ju- rors do not arrive from some- where else. They are us! And this is what makes the Fenech verdict so profoundly unsettling. The easiest conclusion from the Caruana Galizia saga has always been that Malta was betrayed by its institutions