For nine years, Matthew Caruana Galizia has spearheaded his family’s fight for justice for his mother, murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. That fight is far from over.In an exclusive interview with Lovin Malta, Daphne’s eldest son speaks candidly on Yorgen Fenech’s acquittal, on sitting feet away in court from the man who admitted paying towards his mother’s assassination, and on the drastic changes that our judicial process and institutions require.Fenech had been accused of complicity in the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and of forming a criminal association to carry out the killing. He was found “Not Guilty” on both accounts, with an 8-1 verdict.https://youtu.be/g6EZZZ327CI?si=fkBtuwWdt2dxmzCa Face to face with FenechCaruana Galizia described what it was like sharing a courtroom with Yorgen Fenech throughout the trial. “Standing in the same room as the person you know, you saw with your own eyes, admitting to paying money towards the murder of your own mother,” he said.He recalled a moment during a jury site visit to the area near his family home, from where the hitman is said to have planned the shooting: Fenech himself was reportedly too afraid to get out of the car. “He didn’t have the stomach to get out of the car,” Caruana Galizia said, “until the police told the judge that he didn’t want to get out… When he realised he was being compelled to do so, he got out himself. And when he got out of the car, he couldn’t look a single person in the eye.”He said he made a point of looking Fenech in the eye throughout the trial. “I wanted him to know that we saw him for what he was.”“We may never come out of the abyss”On the moment the verdict was read, Caruana Galizia says he was “absolutely shocked,” and knew the whole country would be too. “This was going to be something that throws Malta even deeper into the abyss that it’s already in, and that we may never come out of it,” he said. “The government has so much work to do to repair the damage that has been done. Even if we never get justice for my mother, it’s going to take a century or more to fix it.”“A country is nothing without a justice system that delivers justice for its people,” he said. “The justice system is literally the last resort of the people. If we don’t even have that, then we have absolutely nothing. We might as well be living in the middle of the jungle,” he continued. Asked if that’s where Malta is heading, he didn’t hesitate: “I think that’s where we are now, where you can murder someone and get away with it.”A Daphne Hate CampaignFenech’s defence had argued throughout the trial that the money he admitted paying was meant to stop the murder plot, not carry it out. On this, Caruana Galizia said: “No one in their right mind would ever believe anything like that,” adding that this is no different to “the defence of one of those men who murders their wife and then says, ‘I did it because I loved her.’” He also believes his mother was deliberately dehumanised in the years leading up to the trial. “There was a campaign that the government facilitated to dehumanise my mother to no end, to make people comfortable with allowing the person who killed her… to walk free, rewarding him with liberty,” he said.The trial process itself has taken a personal toll on the family, forcing them to relive the journalists horrific death. “I testified six times about the day of my mother’s assassination in front of a courtroom full of people,” he said. “You can imagine what that is like.”‘There is no justice without a guilty verdict’Pressed on what justice would look like short of a conviction, Caruana Galizia was adamant there is no alternative. “There is no justice without a guilty verdict or a conviction of a person who admits complicity in murder.There is no other option,” he said, adding that while this is essentially the responsibility of the State, it has clearly failed in doing so.He argues the fact that Fenech opted for a jury trial rather than a judge speaks for itself. “No judge in their right mind would have ever acquitted a person who admits complicity in murder,” he said. “I think that’s why ultimately he chose to have his case heard before a jury and not a judge.”Questioning the relevance of a trial by jury in this day and age, Caruana Galizia recalled watching jurors fall asleep during the judge’s instructions. “I saw with my own eyes, members of the jury asleep in front of her while she was saying [they were judges of fact]. Snoring in front of the judge,” he said. “I think every journalist saw them snoring.”Progress, despite the setbackEven so, Caruana Galizia says he hasn’t lost faith entirely, pointing to how far the investigation has come since 2017. “The government was absolutely dead set on making sure that the investigation into my mother stopped at the hitmen, and that’s it,” he said. “Look how far we got: first to the bomb makers, then to Melvin Theuma, then to Yorgen Fenech… that to me is a huge accomplishment.”He contrasted his family’s approach with that of the people they’re up against, recalling something he says Fenech told middleman Melvin Theuma directly: that their power lies in money. “Our language is our courage. Our language is justice. Our language is truth, not money,” he said.The family’s relationship with Melvin TheumaCaruana Galizia also addressed online claims, including doctored photos, suggesting he has a close relationship with Theuma, the middleman who was given a presidential pardon in exchange for testimony. He described the first time Theuma tried to speak to him: after a suicide attempt, Theuma called him from an unknown number, in a hoarse voice, apologising. Caruana Galizia says he told him not to give Fenech the satisfaction of his death.Asked if he has forgiven him, he was clear he hasn’t. “How can I forgive anyone involved in the murder of my mother? I can’t do that,” he said. But he distinguished between people like Theuma, who he says is genuinely tormented by what he did, and “a group of cold-blooded killers who feel absolutely no remorse and are still able to live with themselves.”On the edited photos circulating online, he said he was “absolutely disgusted” but not surprised, drawing a comparison to how families of mafia victims in Italy are routinely smeared. He also addressed being personally accused online of complicity in his own mother’s murder: “I don’t know how they live. I don’t know how they’re alive. Psychopathic.”On Muscat’s press conferenceCaruana Galizia reacted to former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s post-verdict press conference, singling out Muscat’s own admission that he was “perplexed” by the acquittal. “There was even more proof of Yorgen Fenech’s complicity… presented to the jurors than there was presented to [Muscat] when he made the decision to give the pardon on Melvin Theuma,” he said. “If he himself said that, I think supporters of the Labour Party need to listen to him and take his word for it.”On Muscat directing his apology instead to the families of Karen Grech and Raymond Caruana, he said those families “100% deserve apologies for the next 1,000 years,” but pushed back on the framing. “This is not a competition. If we can’t deliver justice for one murder victim, then it’s unlikely that we’re going to deliver justice for any others,” he said. “What kind of a society is that? Not one I want to live in.” As for Muscat personally, he said he’s “beyond asking for apologies” from him; what matters now, he said, is what Muscat can still do.“One obstacle at a time”Asked what comes next, Caruana Galizia pointed to the fight for a retrial, saying he cannot walk away from his mother’s memorial site “unless I know that I did everything possible to make sure that the person who admits complicity in murder is held to account.”He closed with a simple message about the road ahead: “One obstacle at a time. We’re on a ship on this journey, and we have to make it to the destination.”Watch the full exclusive interview above.•