VALLETA, Malta (AP) — A jury in Malta on Wednesday acquitted the Maltese businessman accused by prosecutors of being the mastermind of the 2017 car bomb killing of crusading investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, sparking renewed calls for accountability in the Mediterranean island nation.
Caruana Galizia’s killing shocked Europe, led to protests that toppled a prime minister and exposed a culture of impunity in the European Union’s smallest state.
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Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech exits the courthouse after being acquitted of ordering the 2017 car bomb killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Valletta, Malta, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Kevin Schembri Orland)WLD
FILE - An ambulance and police vehicles are parked along the road where a car bomb exploded killing investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in the town of Mosta, Malta, Oct. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Rene Rossignaud, File)
FILE - Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech leaves court after being questioned in the 2017 bomb blast that killed investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia as she drove near her home, Nov. 29, 2019, in Valletta, Malta. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Flowers and a candle lie in front of a portrait of slain investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia during a vigil outside the law courts in Valletta, Malta, Oct. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg, File)
Yorgen Fenech, a prominent Maltese businessman, was indicted in 2021 on charges of complicity and criminal conspiracy. Prosecutors accused him of being the mastermind of the slaying and of having ordered and paid for it.
He pleaded not guilty and the jury on Wednesday, in an 8-1 vote, found him not guilty on both counts. Fenech was greeted with jeers outside the courtroom and the opposition Nationalist Party organized a demonstration late Wednesday to demand justice.
Fenech was the last of a half-dozen people charged in the plot to be prosecuted.
Caruana Galizia, 53, was killed on Oct. 16, 2017, by a car bomb that was detonated while she was driving near her home.
She had written extensively about suspected corruption in political and business circles in Malta, with investigative reports targeting people in then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle whom she accused of having offshore companies in tax havens disclosed in the Panama Papers leak. She also targeted the opposition and business leaders in Malta.
At the time of her death, she was facing more than 40 libel suits.
An independent inquiry into the killing published in 2021 concluded that the Maltese state “has to bear responsibility” for the assassination due to a culture of impunity that emanated from the highest levels of government.
Fenech was involved in a consortium that won a controversial contract with the Maltese government to build a power station.
His arrest in 2019, as he was sailing away from Malta on his yacht, sparked a series of mass protests in the country that culminated with Muscat’s resignation.
After he was acquitted of all charges Wednesday, he walked out of the Valletta courtroom to a chaotic scene outside, with hecklers yelling as he walked away.
One of his lawyers, Gianella De Marco, expressed satisfaction with the verdict.
“We are happy that justice has prevailed,” she told reporters. She said the outcome showed that the jury didn't believe a key prosecution witness who was granted a presidential pardon in exchange for his testimony.
Caruana Galizia's children were at the forefront in demanding accountability and justice over her death. Her sons were in the courtroom when the verdict was read out but left without commenting to reporters.
In a statement later posted to Facebook, the family said the verdict denied Caruana Galizia the “justice she deserves."
“Nine years after Daphne’s brutal assassination, the institutional failures that enabled her murder remain unaddressed and unreformed. Lasting justice means no person should ever face the same risks again," the statement said. "Our country failed to protect Daphne. It owes it to her to prevent other lives being lost.”
The opposition Nationalist Party organized a silent march late Wednesday, saying in a statement that it respected the verdict but demanding accountability over who ordered her assassination.
“After years of investigations, inquiries and judicial proceedings, justice has still not reached where it needed to reach – neither for Daphne’s family nor for our country,” the party said in a statement.
The government, for its part, said it had always provided the needed support and resources for the investigation and remained committed to seeing justice through. It noted in a statement that a number of people had already been sentenced to lengthy prison terms over the case.
No cameras were allowed in the courtroom, as is typical in Maltese criminal trials.
In 2022, George Degiorgio and his brother Alfred Degiorgio both pleaded guilty to carrying out the slaying. They were each sentenced to 40 years in prison.
In 2025, two other men were sentenced to life in prison, the maximum penalty possible, after being convicted of complicity in the murder. Jamie Vella and Robert Agius were accused of supplying the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia.
Another man, Vincent Muscat, pleaded guilty in 2021 for his role in the slaying, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
A self-confessed middleman, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for testimony.
The slaying, and the culture it exposed, led to calls for reforms of Malta's judicial and legal systems and greater protection for journalists. Tim Gibson, the deputy advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Wednesday that the group would continue to seek justice.
He said Wednesday's verdict was ”heartbreaking for her family, who - almost nine years after her death - are still waiting for justice. We will continue to stand by them, and to seek accountability for all those involved in her murder.”
Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech exits the courthouse after being acquitted of ordering the 2017 car bomb killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Valletta, Malta, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Kevin Schembri Orland)WLD
FILE - An ambulance and police vehicles are parked along the road where a car bomb exploded killing investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in the town of Mosta, Malta, Oct. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Rene Rossignaud, File)
FILE - Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech leaves court after being questioned in the 2017 bomb blast that killed investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia as she drove near her home, Nov. 29, 2019, in Valletta, Malta. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Flowers and a candle lie in front of a portrait of slain investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia during a vigil outside the law courts in Valletta, Malta, Oct. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg, File)
PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial went home without a verdict Wednesday following a fifth day of deliberations and twice saying they can’t agree whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three young children.
The jury will return again Thursday morning. The judge told jurors to keep deliberating Wednesday when they said for a second straight day that they were at an impasse — a sign there’s a growing chance of a hung jury and the trial ending without a resolution.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children in the basement of their home in 2023. Her attorney argues that postpartum psychosis led to her actions, while prosecutors say she knew what she was doing when she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.
“I know it’s been a long day,” Judge William Sullivan said, “so at this point, what I’m going to do is, first off thank you for your time and commitment to this case. I’m going to ask you to come back tomorrow morning."
Clancy stared at the jury with no expression when Sullivan earlier in the day explained to the courtroom that the jurors were at a standstill.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
Earlier in the day, the jury sent the court a note saying it couldn't unanimously agree on a verdict, despite days of trying. The jury had sent a similar note Tuesday morning. Neither note revealed anything about how the jury might be split or said anything about the tone of deliberations.
Sullivan then gave the jury a legal instruction sometimes known as a “dynamite charge” because it is intended to help a jury break through an impasse.
He told the jurors not to abandon their own convictions just to reach a verdict, but urged them to seriously consider opposing views and reassess their positions if appropriate. No one knows, he added, whether another jury would be “more intelligent, more impartial or more competent to decide it than you are.”
Such instructions are common in many states and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld their constitutionality, but they are barred in some states because of concerns they might be coercive.
Elyse Hershon, a Boston criminal defense attorney and legal analyst, said, “The next time they say they are deadlocked or unagreed — that is usually the mistrial call.”
Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense interest, with reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also sparked deep public divisions over her culpability and the issues around maternal mental health after childbirth.
Clancy strangled her children in her home, then jumped from a second-floor window. She remains paralyzed from the waist down. Her lawyers say she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life, and had bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth.
The prosecution argued that Clancy planned to kill herself because of depression, deliberately sent her then-husband on errands to get him out of the house that day, and killed the children because she didn't want them to suffer after she was gone.
Jurors heard testimony from relatives and doctors about how Clancy’s mental health declined in the months before the killings and how her treatment included therapy, several medications and a short stay in a psychiatric hospital.
If jurors ultimately can’t agree on a verdict, the judge could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges or try to negotiate a plea deal with her lawyer.
If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines that she poses a danger to the public.
Dawn Light, 56, was arraigned on an intimidation charge Wednesday at the same courthouse as Clancy's trial in Plymouth, south of Boston. Authorities say she filmed jurors leaving the courthouse a day earlier.
Light, a retired nurse and Clancy supporter, told reporters she was there: “To see Lindsay. And I did see her. She was getting picked up by the van.”
Her lawyer Jennifer White called it a “misunderstanding.”
A not-guilty plea was entered on Light's behalf and she was ordered to stay away from the court, jurors and witnesses.
The arrest prompted the judge to ask each juror Wednesday if they saw anything that would affect their impartiality, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington told The Associated Press. The judge also opened the day's proceedings with a warning that he had issued an order governing how people should conduct themselves at the courthouse. That order barred people from filming, following, contacting or tampering with jurors.
This story has been corrected to show that Clancy’s attorney clarified that the judge asked jurors about their impartiality, not the woman’s arrest.
Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.
The press and spectators sit in the courtroom during Lindsay Clancy's murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Lindsay Clancy and attorney Kevin Reddington watch as Judge William Sullivan tells the jury to keep discussing a possible verdict after jurors said for a second time they couldn't agree whether Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Mike Musgrove, father of Lindsay Clancy, center right, sits with family as they listen to the judge tell the jury to keep discussing a possible verdict after jurors said they couldn't agree for a second time whether Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Lindsay Clancy and attorney Kevin Reddington watch as Judge William Sullivan tells the jury to keep discussing a possible verdict after jurors said for a second time they couldn't agree whether Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger)
In this photo taken with a smartphone Dawn Light is questioned by reporters as she leaves her arraignment where she was charged with intimidation in connection with the Lindsay Clancy's murder trial in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)
Dawn Light attends her arraignment on a charge of intimidation in connection with the Lindsay Clancy's murder trial at Plymouth District Court in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Judge William Sullivan speaks to the press and spectators in the courtroom during Lindsay Clancy's murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
A diet soda sits in Lindsay Clancy's wheelchair as the jury resumes deliberations during her murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Lindsay Clancy reacts to news that a woman was arrested for recording images of the jury at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
Lindsay Clancy looks to her lawyer Kevin Reddington as the jury keeps deliberating at her murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
