By Chris Scicluna
Sept 4 (Reuters) – Malta’s attorney general is set to appeal the acquittal of a top businessman over the murder of an anti-corruption journalist, seeking a retrial, the Times of Malta and other media reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.
A jury acquitted businessman Yorgen Fenech in an 8-1 verdict on charges of complicity to murder Daphne Caruana Galizia and criminal association. Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb metres from her home in 2017.
The appeal, if filed, would prolong one of Europe’s most closely watched murder cases. Five men have been convicted of carrying out the killing or supplying the bomb, but the acquittal of Fenech, who prosecutors said commissioned the murder, has left no one held legally responsible for ordering it.
The attorney general’s office has not yet officially declared its intention, and it could not be contacted for comment.
The law allows 15 working days for an appeal on points of law before three judges.
One of Caruana Galizia’s sons, Matthew, said in a Facebook post that a push for a retrial “is the right thing”.
“All branches of the state including the judiciary must not allow our country to be one in which people get away with murder,” he added.
The Court of Criminal Appeal may only consider an appeal from jury trials if it considers there was a “grave irregularity during the proceedings”, or if the judgment was clearly the result of a “manifest misinterpretation” or “manifestly wrong application of the law” which could have had a bearing on the verdict.
The grounds upon which the appeal may be filed were not disclosed. Observers said a potential issue concerned what prosecutors were allowed to tell jurors and what they were prevented from telling them.
(Writing by Chris Scicluna; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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