FILE PHOTO: People hold up photos of late anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia during a protest march on the sixth anniversary of her assassination, in Valletta, Malta October 16, 2023. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi/File Photo
VALLETTA (Reuters) -Two men were jailed for life by a Maltese judge on Tuesday for having supplied the bomb that killed anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017.
Caruana Galizia's murder shocked Malta and caused outrage across Europe, ultimately leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in 2019.
Robert Agius and Jamie Vella were convicted on Friday, with jurors reaching an 8-1 verdict after a trial that lasted more than six weeks concluded that they supplied the explosive material for money. The two defendants pleaded not guilty.
Their sentence was delivered on Tuesday, after lawyers’ submissions on punishment.
Caruana Galizia was killed on October 17, 2017, when a bomb placed under the driver's seat of her car blew up as she was driving away from her home.
Another two men, brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, are serving 40-year jail terms after admitting to having set off the bomb. A third man, Vince Muscat, who also admitted his role in the murder, is serving 15 years after turning state's evidence and testifying against the Degiorgios, and also against Agius and Vella.
He described meetings in a coffee shop to plan the murder and how the military-grade bomb was procured, carried in a children’s shoe box and placed in Caruana Galizia’s car. It was set off by remote control from a yacht.
The alleged murder mastermind, one of Malta's leading businessmen, is awaiting trial and a court has banned media references to him so as not to influence potential jurors.
(Reporting by Christopher Scicluna, editing by Alvise Armellini and Alex Richardson)
