Degiorgios claim Security Service tailed Caruana Galizia before 2017

The two brothers jailed after admitting to having assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia have announced their intention to implicate prominent political figures, high-ranking police officers, as well as the Malta Security Services, in the 2017 murder. 

They also intend to implicate them in other serious crimes, about which they also want to testify. 

The serious, and as yet unsubstantiated claims, were made in a document sent to the press, and signed by criminals George and Alfred Degiorgio, who are serving 40 years in jail for the murder of Caruana Galizia by car bomb. 

In it, the incarcerated brothers say their claims had already been brought to the attention of the Prime Minister and the Commissioner of Police as well as other high-ranking police officers, but that no action had been taken. 

And they claim the justice system had been abused to mislead and accuse people who “as far as we know had no part in these crimes” – they said. 

2017 Daphne Caruana Galizia murder 

Regarding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Degiorgio brothers are claiming to know first-hand that the truth of what actually happened was different to that being “depicted and projected by the investigating police officers and politicians.”  

The hitmen said they now believed that there was a concerted effort to cover up for the “real criminals who commissioned these crimes.” 

“We can testify about the involvement of several persons, amongst them ex-minister Chris Cardona and Keith Schembri. We can testify about the involvement of former Commissioner of Police Lawrence Cutajar and the Secret Services,” reads the declaration, making the never-before-heard claim that before the 2017 general election, MSS agents had been tailing Caruana Galizia and reporting on her movements.  

“The police were given instructions not to pass through the area where Caruana Galizia lived. We can confirm this ourselves,” they said.   

They accused Police Homicide Squad Superintendent Keith Arnaud of having acted on direct instructions from prominent persons in order to protect them and charge people who the brothers say they “believe had never been involved in the case.” 

The €1 million bounty for information that was offered by the government in the immediate aftermath of the murder was a “game meant to make the persons actually involved look like virgins.” 

“But we make it clear that the person promised and given a pardon is twisting the facts and we believe that he is saying what someone else is dictating to him,” the statement reads. 

2010 HSBC Heist 

Alfred and George Degiorgio allege that they have already given the police information about the 2010 HSBC heist, and another hold-up on a cash van in Santa Venera, in which they allege that then-Labour MPs (and former ministers) Chris Cardona and Carmelo Abela, and the lawyer David Gatt, to have been involved, together with co-accused Vince Muscat ‘il-Koħħu’ and “several other well-known criminals.”  

Those allegations are not new, but the brothers are now alleging the involvement of an unnamed police officer who had been in the Special Assignment Group at the time and who was now part of the Rapid Intervention Unit. 

The Degiorgios say they had already provided information about three unsolved bombings which occurred between 2013 and 2017, but no further action had been taken. 

“The authorities do not want them to be solved,” the statement reads. “We are mentioning these cases amongst others because we have already given information about them to the authorities, but evidently there is no interest in this information coming out into the open. Besides these, we have and know of other very serious cases which, for the time being, we do not wish to reveal.” 

‘We are not the monsters we are being depicted as’ 

The brothers said that they were now going public “so that everyone can be informed of the truth about certain crimes which happened and the truth about which is being twisted in order to protect certain prominent persons.” 

“We are being depicted as society’s monsters, but without taking anything away from the gravity of these crimes, we want to make it clear that we are also victims of the same prominent figures in Maltese society.”  

“We are not the monsters of society as the people who were involved are depicting us. We were under the yoke of and completely manipulated by prominent people, like Ministers, the Commissioner of Police and high-ranking officials of that time, as well as by Officers in the Armed Forces. We had passed on a lot of sensitive information to Inspector Keith Arnaud, which was supposed to be passed on to the Commissioner of Police, the Attorney General, the Cabinet and the President of Malta,” the brothers said.  

The Degiorgios say they had been used by several people, “amongst them ex-ministers like Carmelo Abela and Chris Cardona, lawyers amongst them David Gatt… and high-ranking officers in the police as well as the army.” 

It was clear, they said, that because of “internal pacts which must be honoured,” not every party involved in the crimes will bear their share of responsibility. 

Despite having passed on “sensitive and useful information” to the police about several unsolved crimes, the police did not take any action, “perhaps on the instructions of certain important persons.” 

The Degiorgio brothers declared that they were prepared to once again pass on this information today, “but to someone who truly wants to solve these cases and not who, as has happened so far, uses it to dirty us more and protect third parties in their positions and in so doing ensure his position and that of his family. The oil must come to the surface of the water.” 

The statement ends with a plea to the President of the Republic, who the convicted murderers say they know to be a correct and honest person, “occupying a serious office, that is above political and administrative manipulation… We ask you to intervene on the basis of these facts…let the people who you represent know the truth because they are being misled by those who hold sway over them and [by] certain individuals who are furthermore projecting themselves as virgins while being in reality demonically possessed.” 

Repeating a statement that they had made in previous years, the jailed assassins said they “truly wished that their victims’ families be told the whole truth, so that they can find comfort in the justice that must be done with who truly was behind the crimes which we have offered to testify about.”

Caruana Galizia's sister reacts

In comments to the MaltaToday, Daphne Caruana Galizia's sister, Corinne Vella questioned the motive behind the issuing of the statement. "George Degiorgio is a convicted murderer who admitted in an interview with Reuters that, to him, murdering Daphne was “business as usual”. He was willing to blow up Daphne’s car when other members of Daphne’s family were travelling with her, to collect payment for killing Daphne herself,” the murdered journalist’s sister said. "Rather than face a jury trial and lifetime imprisonment, George and Alfred Degiorgio admitted to killing Daphne and have been sentenced to 40 years in prison.”

"The Degiorgios’ and another murderer’s convictions for Daphne’s contract killing are thanks to a small group of people working - at great risk to themselves - to bring all of Daphne’s murderers to justice. The attempt by two of Daphne’s murderers to derail pending murder proceedings should be seen in this perspective."