Maltese prosecutors charge businessman in reporter’s killing

Malta prosecutors charge local businessman with being accomplice in 2017 car bomb killing of anti-corruption journalist

Maltese prosecutors on Saturday charged a prominent local businessman as being an accomplice to the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a 2017 car bombing on Malta.

Yorgen Fenech, a Maltese hotelier and director of the Maltese power company, was also charged in the evening courtroom hearing with being an accomplice to causing the explosion that killed the 53-year-old reporter as she drove near her home.

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli asked Fenech to enter pleas. He replied that he was pleading innocent, and he was remanded in custody.

The reporter’s family has alleged that Fenech has ties to close associates of the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

It wasn’t immediately unclear if Muscat might resign amid increasing calls by citizens on the island for him to step down.

Caruana Galizia wrote shortly before her death that corruption was everywhere in political and business circles in the tiny EU nation.

An alleged go-between in the bombing has received immunity from prosecution for alerting authorities to Fenech’s purported involvement.

Three men have been in jail as the alleged bombers, but no trial date for them has been set.