One of the three men facing trial for the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been sentenced to 15 years. She was killed by a car bomb in 2017.
Vincent Muscat pleaded guilty Tuesday in a preliminary hearing in Malta. He was immediately jailed for 15 years with a reduced sentence.
Brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, also accused of planting and detonating the bomb, remained silent.
Vince Muscat has been in custody since December 2017. The other two defendants stood on acquittals.
Another newspaper in the country, MaltaToday reported that three other men, suspected of supplying the used bomb, were arrested on Tuesday in a police operation.
Both newspapers reported that Muscat’s guilty plea on Tuesday was understood to have resulted from an agreement with prosecutors to provide information in exchange for the reduced sentence.
Caruana Galizia faced lawsuits after she began investigating Panamanian newspapers in 2013 and eventually uncovered offshore firms suspected of being linked to Malta’s business and political elite.
Her sister, Corinne Vella, told DË in 2019 that the murder was not just a murder of a person, but “is about people’s right to know”.