The Maltese man who was hired as a watchman to watch Panama Papers journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia before she was killed in October 2017, told a court that he and his killers discussed whether to murder her with a rifle at close range. – they finally decided it was “too loud” – before deciding on a bomb, because it was “cleaner”.
Vincent Muscat ‘il-Koħħu’, who is serving a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to his role in Galizia’s murder, apologized to her family before his five-hour testimony on Thursday, according to The Times of Malta and other media reports. “I admitted all the charges against me and I was convicted,” he told the court.
He then painted a picture of the plot to accurately kill her, including how he and the other defendant Alfred Degiorgio spent time watching the journalist closely in cafes and through the windows of his Maltese home using an autofocus telescope. “We would be sitting there on two bricks. It was uncomfortable and you were in pain, ”he said. “I used to fetch food sometimes. I was buying three packs of Rothmans Red a day. We throw the tips into a water bottle, so as not to leave a trace. We watched Daphne on her couch with a laptop until 2 am ”
Seven people have been charged with murder and complicity, including Maltese tycoon Yorgen Fenech, whom Muscat says was the mastermind of the plot. Fenech, who was arrested trying to embark for Italy, denies the charge.
Muscat described how he took the job to kill her. “Alfred Degiorgio came to me and said that there was a good job for me,” he told the court. “The plan was to follow in her footsteps and shoot her when the time is right.”
He then described how he and the others received an advance payment of € 30,000, in € 50 bills. “We took € 10,000 each and started the job. Alfred and I followed her to Bidnija, ”he said, referring to her home village. He then said that the original plan was to kill her inside his home.
At one point, they planned to carry out their execution with a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight on it. Alfred Degiorgio was ready to pull the trigger, but his brother George Degiorgio canceled the blow, telling the men that he was “very loud” and that they would probably be caught. “A pump will be easier to install, much cleaner,” they decided.
“The plan was to get Alfred to shoot under the tree,” he said, according to Maltese media reports. “I would take him out of the scene in a stolen car. As soon as he fired, I would have to raise the gate so we could escape. “
Muscat also cited several people close to the inner circle of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who he said had ordered the assassination, including former Maltese Economy Minister Chris Cardona and Muscat’s former chief of staff, Keith Schembri. Muscat, the admitted killer, is not related to former Prime Minister Muscat.
During the testimony, Galizia’s children tweeted live some of the horrible details. “Alfred Degiorgio took a small bottle of water, filled it with gasoline and tied it to the pump to make its impact even more devastating,” tweeted Matthew Caruana Galizia. “It was made of sophisticated, stainless steel, clearly foreign-made … It had a SIM card slot.”
The two men had a stockpile of weapons in their car to escape. “We had guns in the car,” he said. “There was a 9 mm automatic that carried a 16-shot magazine and an AK-47 in the car, in case we found a roadblock.”
Then, while the journalist’s children and husband listened, Muscat described the bomb that was so strong that it threw his car off the road in a nearby field and literally blew his body to pieces. “Fifteen centimeters thick, twelve wide and seven long,” he said, using his hands to show the approximate size. “It was a nice pump, it had a stainless steel face.”
He went on to say that he had a SIM card slot to control blasting with high precision. “The bomb came with a cell phone. He had a switch. You send a specific message to the pump’s SIM card, ”he said. “It had about 500g of explosive.”
Then he added that it was very important for the people who hired them to ensure that she did not survive, that they reinforced the bomb. “We put a bottle of gas in it, in case it wasn’t strong enough,” he said.
They also “got” a car identical to Galizia’s to practice opening the rear window and inserting the pump under the driver’s seat. He also said that Alfred Degiorgio was apparently dealing with two groups that wanted to hire them to kill Galicia. “Alfred once told me that Cardona sent me a message,” he said, referring to the former Economy Minister. “He mentioned € 150,000. He said that there are two groups … they quoted the same price. “
The night before her death, Muscat said he was summoned to pick up the bomb in a garage in a suburb of Valletta. Galizia had left her car outside that night, instead of inside the garage, giving them the perfect opportunity to plant the deadly explosive. They installed the bomb in the middle of the night, carrying it in a backpack to her car.
Then they met again at 6 am on the morning of the murder and waited for hours before she left. “‘Ens, she’s leaving,’ Degiorgio told me … but she came back,” said Muscat. “Shortly after, she reappeared, it was as if she had forgotten something.”
Then Galizia got in her car and drove out of her garage and down a winding road. They detonated the bomb just before the road sank, Muscat testified. “We were going back to the car. We didn’t hear anything, ”Muscat told the court. “Alfred said, ‘I don’t think it exploded’. I looked back and saw black smoke. I swear, Your Honor, we haven’t heard from there. We heard only a small sound. “
Muscat then told the court that he was shocked by the national and international attention that the murder attracted. He said he had no idea how important it was or the impact of what they did.