Malta businessman Yorgen Fenech paid €150,000 to kill journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, jury told

The trial of Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech has begun in Valletta, with prosecutors alleging he paid €150,000 to arrange the 2017 murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

According to the indictment, read to the jury and reported by The Guardian, Fenech asked taxi driver and bookmaker Melvin Theuma to find hitmen to kill Caruana Galizia.

Prosecutors allege George DegiDegiorgio his brother Alfred later agreed to carry out the killing for €150,000, with €30,000 paid in advance.

Fenech, 44, has pleaded not guilty to charges of complicity in voluntary homicide and criminal association.

He is the final defendant among seven men accused of involvement in the journalist's killing. Five have already been convicted, while another received a pardon in exchange for testimony.

The jury heard that Caruana Galizia was killed on 16 October 2017 after a bomb hidden beneath the driver's seat of her car exploded as she left her home in Bidnija.

Prosecutors allege the attackers had monitored her movements for weeks before planting the device.

According to The Guardian, prosecutors claim the alleged murder plot began in April 2017 but was briefly delayed because of Malta's general election before allegedly resuming weeks later.

Caruana Galizia, 53, was one of Malta's best-known investigative journalists, whose reporting on political and business figures attracted international attention before her killing.