The Maltese man who was hired as a guard to watch Panama Papers journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia before she was killed in October 2017 told a court that he and his killers argued over if they would kill him with a rifle nearby. it was “too noisy,” before being put on a bomb, because it was “cleaner.”
Vincent Muscat ‘il-Kohhu’, who is serving a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to his role in the murder of Galizia, apologized to his family ahead of his five-hour testimony on Thursday, according to The Times of Malta and other media reports. “I admitted all charges against me and I have been convicted,” he told the court.
He then painted a picture of the plot to kill her accurately, including how he and his defendant Alfred Degiorgio spent time watching the journalist near cafes and through the windows of his Maltese home. with an autofocus telescope. “We would be sitting there on two bricks. It was uncomfortable and it would hurt you, ”he said. “Sometimes I would go looking for food. I bought three packs of Rothmans Red a day. We arranged the butts in a bottle of water, so as not to leave any traces. We saw Daphne on her couch with a laptop until two in the morning. “
Seven people have been charged with murder and complicity, including Maltese tycoon Yorgen Fenech, who Muscat says planned the plot. Fenech, who was arrested trying to sail to Italy, denies the charge.
Muscat described how he took the job to kill her: “Alfred Degiorgio came to me and told me 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 came.”
He then described how he and the others were paid an advance of € 30,000, in € 50 bills. “We took € 10,000 each and started working. Alfred and I followed her to Bidnija, ”he said, referring to his hometown. Then he said the original plan was to kill her inside his house.
At one point, they planned to carry out their execution with a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight. Alfred Degiorgio was about to pull the trigger, but his brother George Degiorgio called off the attack, telling the men it was “too noisy” and they would probably catch them. “A pump will be easier to install, much cleaner,” they decided.
“The plan was to get Alfred to shoot from under the tree,” he said, according to Maltese media reports. “I would take him away from the scene with a stolen car. As soon as he fired, he would have to lift the door to escape.
Muscat also named several people close to the inner circle of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who he said had ordered the attack, including Malta’s former Economy Minister Chris Cardona and Muscat’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri. Muscat, the admitted killer, is unrelated to Muscat, the former prime minister.
During the testimony, Galizia’s children tweeted live some of the horrible details. “Alfred Degiorgio got a small bottle of water, filled it with petrol and tied it to the pump to make its impact even more devastating,” tweeted Matthew Caruana Galizia. “It was made of stainless steel, sophisticated, foreign made … It had a slot for a SIM card.”
The two men had a cache of weapons in the car to flee. “We had guns in the car,” he said. “There was a 9mm automatic carrying a 16-wheel loader and an AK-47 in the car in case we came across a roadblock.”
Then, as the journalist’s children and husband listened, Muscat described the bomb that was so strong that it drove the car off the road to a nearby field and literally exploded its body. “Six inches thick, five inches wide and three inches long,” he said, using his hands to show the approximate size. “It was a neat bomb. It had a stainless steel face.”
He went on to say that he had a slot for a SIM card to control the detonation with high precision. “The bomb came with a mobile phone. It had a switch. Send a specific message to the SIM card of the pump, ”he said. “It had about 500 g of explosive.”
He then added that it was so important for the people who hired them to make sure he would not survive, that they reinforced the bomb. “We attached a bottle of gasoline to it just in case it wasn’t strong enough,” he said.
They also “got” a car identical to the one in Galicia so they could practice how to open the rear window and insert the pump under the driver’s seat. He also said that apparently Alfred Degiorgio was dealing with two groups they both wanted to hire to kill Galizia. “Once, Alfred told me that Cardona sent me a message,” he said in reference to the former Minister of Economy. “He mentioned the € 150,000. He said there are two groups … they were quoted at the same price. “
The night before she was killed, Muscat said she was summoned to pick up the bomb in a garage in a Valletta suburb. Galizia had left their car outside that night rather than inside the garage, giving them a perfect opportunity to plant the deadly explosive. They installed the bomb in the middle of the night, carrying it in a backpack to their car.
They then met again at 6 a.m. the morning of the murder and waited hours before he left. “Census, it will come out,” Degiorgio told me … but he came back, “Muscat said. “Soon after, he reappeared, it was as if he had forgotten something.”
Then Galizia got in her car and got out of her driveway and down a winding road. They detonated the bomb just before the road fell, Muscat said. “We were walking 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, Mr. Honor, we didn’t hear anything from there. We only heard a small sound.”
Muscat then told the court that he was surprised by the national and international attention he got from the murder. He said he had no idea how important it was or the impact of what they had done.