The two brothers who pleaded guilty to assassinating journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia said Saturday that they had been told that the money for carrying out the crime was to be collected from a government office in Valletta.

In a statement issued through their lawyers on Saturday, Alfred and George Degiorgio again claimed to be in possession of information about the involvement of politicians and other high-profile people in the assassination of the journalist in October 2017 and also in other crimes.

The Degiorgio brothers are serving a 40-year jail term each for their part in the assassination of the journalist on 16 October 2017.

In comments to The Malta Independent soon after the release of the brothers’ statement, Corinne Vella, one of Daphne’s sisters, said that: "Yorgen Fenech asked for a presidential pardon for Daphne's murder. An innocent man does not ask to be pardoned for murder. During the compilation of evidence, it was shown that Yorgen Fenech was passing on money to the Degiorgio family via self-confessed middleman, Melvin Theuma. Theuma testified under oath that he never mentioned Fenech’s name to the Degiorgios.”

The Degiorgio brothers said that Vince Muscat, il-Kohhu, had told one lie after another.

Muscat was sentenced to a 15-year jail term after changing his plea with regard to his involvement in the journalist’s assassination to guilty in 2021. He was also granted a presidential pardon in exchange for information in respect of the Caruana Galizia murder and also on the 2015 fatal shooting of lawyer Carmel Chircop. 

In their statement Saturday, the Degiorgio brothers said that before the three of them had been arrested in December 2017, Muscat used to speak one way about the murder but then changed his version in statements he made to the police. 

They said that they never knew Yorgen Fenech, who now stands charged with being a mastermind behind the assassination, before the arrests. They had never received money from him either.

Theuma had not mentioned Fenech as one of those involved in the crime, the brothers said. They added that Theuma had always told them that the money for the crime was to be collected from a government office in Valletta.

We are carrying our responsibility, they said. It is time for others to carry theirs, they said.