Following a guilty plea, the Criminal Court today sentenced brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio to 40 years each for their role as hitmen in the assassination of Malta’s leading investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Today, representatives of Article 19 Europe, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, the International Press Institute and Reporters Without Borders were present at court in Valletta to monitor proceedings.  They were there to hear the unprecedented guilty pleas and subsequent sentencing.

This sentence concludes the case against the Degiorgio brothers for their role as hitmen. Further legal proceedings are pending against the alleged mastermind, Yorgen Fenech and two men who allegedly supplied the bomb. 

Five years after her murder, our organisations continue to push for full justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia and the crimes she was killed for exposing. Nothing less will suffice.