Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to Global Eye,

bringing you unmissable reporting from across the BBC World Service.

I'm Anna Holligan and we're here in Malta.

Coming up in this week's episode,

two stories from two very different parts of the world,

about two people who sought the truth to hold power to account,

and ultimately lost their lives.

Nearly a decade after the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia,

Malta is still grappling with the questions her murder has raised.

In the wake of a landmark verdict in the case,

we'll examine the reaction it's triggered

and the questions that still divide this country.

If people get away with murder in my country, is it safe?

Am I safe?

Also on the programme, a detective probing the abduction

of a suspected Islamic State operative is killed.

Elite soldiers stand accused of his murder.

With exclusive documents and insider testimony,

Africa Eye pieces together the evidence

suggesting a deadly cover-up

that goes to the very heart of the South African state.

Malta is the EU's smallest country, a former British colony

shaped by centuries of Mediterranean influence.

And this place has provided a spectacular backdrop

for many Hollywood blockbusters.

But behind this carefully curated image

is a far darker reality -

political intrigue, allegations of corruption,

and a murder that continues to raise questions.

The violent murder of one of the country's best-known

investigative journalists, Daphne Caruana Galizia, in 2017

prompted widespread public outrage.

Nicknamed the "One-Woman WikiLeaks", Caruana Galizia had uncovered

networks of corruption in Malta and abroad for nearly a decade.

The search for justice has gripped the country.

It was here at the Courts of Justice on the 2nd of September,

Yorgen Fenech, who prosecutors had accused

of masterminding the assassination,

was acquitted on charges of conspiracy to murder

and criminal association to murder - charges he denied.

A few steps away, directly opposite the court,

people have been holding a vigil for Daphne

every month, year after year.

This has been Malta's longest-running murder trial.

It took almost two months,

and more than 100 witnesses were called.

Fenech had ties to the then-government,

and was director of a company Daphne had investigated

just months before her death.

The Attorney General has appealed Yorgen Fenech's acquittal.

The verdict has reopened divisions in Maltese politics

and ignited a national reckoning.

CHEERING

In all honesty, my first sad feeling is for her family.

The fact that, um...

I'm even getting emotional about the fact that, er...

..you know, one of her parents passed away

not getting the justice for their child.

And her sons are terrified for their lives now,

and, um...I just want justice for them and for her name.

Five men were convicted in connection in earlier trials -

three for carrying out the murder and two for supplying the bomb.

But, almost ten years later, no-one has been convicted

of commissioning and masterminding the plot.

A public inquiry in 2021 found that,

while there was no evidence of state involvement,

the state nonetheless bore responsibility

for Daphne Caruana Galizia's death.

It concluded that an atmosphere of impunity

within the administration had spread to other institutions,

such as the police, leading to a collapse in the rule of law.

And it cited an unwarranted closeness

between big business and government.

The inquiry also concluded the state

had failed to recognise risks to her safety

and take reasonable steps to avoid them.

Daphne lived at home with her husband and three sons,

here behind me in the rural hamlet of Bidnija.

It was just before 3pm on the 16th of October 2017 -

she was driving down this road,

and less than a minute into the journey,

a powerful car bomb was detonated.

So powerful it threw the vehicle 80m into this field.

The explosion was audible from her house.

Waiting at home, her son ran out to find his mother's body.

Nearly a decade later,

Matthew still lives in the house in Bidnija.

Love the garden like this. It must be your pride and joy now.

It really is. It really is.

Does it, um...? It's a living part of my mum.

The childhood home, then,

that is a living connection to my mum.

The garden, the house itself,

which is always changing and growing.

Even though it constantly reminds me of that...of that day.

But I feel like I'm with my father,

taking care of a living part of my mother.

Do you remember that moment in court when the verdict was read out?

What was that like?

It was like an out-of-body experience.

The only other time in my life I felt like that

was on the day of the murder itself,

where the next day I felt like I woke up inside a nightmare.

CROWD CLAMOURS

We know nothing. My family knows nothing.

The journalists know nothing.

CROWD CHANTS

This case, the trial of Yorgen Fenech,

was so important to my family and so important to the country

because we all needed it.

We all needed it to close a chapter. And...

..instead, it has remained open

and we have to find other ways to close it.

When you are fighting a criminal group that is so strong,

that at certain points seems to have even more resources

than the state itself,

you need to use every tool, every weapon that you have available

to defend yourself against them.

Part of our fight is to get the Maltese Government

to develop more tools so that it is not as helpless

as it has always been in the face of organised crime.

Do you fear for your safety? Yes, I do.

I...I live with that fear.

So many years after Matthew's mother's murder,

the case remains deeply divisive.

Herman Grech is the editor of one of Malta's largest newspapers.

Daphne was a very divisive figure.

You either loved Daphne or you hated Daphne.

And I've rarely seen a writer, you know,

cause so much entrenchment in society.

I myself had problems with Daphne.

I used to argue with Daphne sometimes,

face-to-face, over a drink.

When she took on people she disliked, she went for them.

There was no filter.

When that verdict came out, you know...

..I had...

It was one of the darkest evenings, probably, in the newsroom,

because we were looking at each other

and we're saying, "It's going to be a lot of unrest coming on,"

and you just feel it. It's palpable. And there's anger.

And there's anger not only

from people who supported, you know, Daphne's cause -

there are people who cannot understand

why the other side is so angry.

What's at stake for Malta

if the mastermind is never brought to justice?

I fear this country will never rest.

When Caruana Galizia was killed,

she was pursuing four major corruption investigations

linked to money, power and influence in Malta.

Over the past decade,

Malta has experienced extraordinary economic growth.

International businesses have been drawn here

by access to the EU market, a favourable tax regime,

and a business-friendly environment.

According to the IMF, it's now Europe's fastest-growing economy.

There are signs of Malta's rapid economic success

all over this island,

but that has been accompanied by growing scrutiny.

And in her reporting,

Daphne Caruana Galizia argued that that same system

created vulnerabilities that enabled corruption.

For many observers, the verdict has reopened the debate

over whether Malta has adequately addressed systemic failures

identified by the inquiry, despite years of promises

to strengthen accountability and press freedom.

I'm extremely concerned by the apparent absence of reforms

in critical areas.

Shami Chakrabarti is the Council of Europe's Special Rapporteur

overseeing the Daphne Caruana Galizia case.

The reason why, for the second time now,

the Council of Europe has decided to launch an inquiry

is really because there are concerns that the recommendations

of a domestic public inquiry in Malta some years ago -

those recommendations have not been implemented.

And there are concerns, really,

about the strength and health of the rule of law itself in Malta.

The Council of Europe is supposed to be a family of nations

all committed to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

And Malta is... is one of those states.

If corruption backed by violence and assassination

is allowed to exist in the Council of Europe,

it is hard to see how the Convention on Human Rights

becomes anything more than a fairy tale.

There are still unsolved murders everywhere in the world, but, um...

And every unsolved, unaccounted-for murder,

to some extent is a failure.

But it's not a failure of the entire system,

particularly if the system learns from what went wrong

and improves itself so that such failures

are much, much harder in the future.

We reached out to the Maltese Government,

but they declined to comment.

The Prime Minister has said

that Malta has made continued and improving progress

in meeting the Council of Europe's recommendations.

Daphne Caruana Galizia often wrote

about the tension between two Maltas -

the belief that beneath the image of a modern, prosperous Malta

lay another story shaped by power, patronage and corruption.

She saw the country as divided

between those willing to tolerate that system

and those who challenged it.

"There is no way out of this culture clash," she wrote.

Nearly a decade after her death,

it's clear that divide still endures.

Our next story takes us to South Africa,

where the pursuit of truth

would ultimately take one police investigator

to a point of no return.

With exclusive access to police evidence,

Dino Mahtani reports now on a tale of power, secrecy and murder

at the heart of South Africa's security establishment.

Lieutenant Colonel Frans Mathipa was a veteran detective

for an elite South African police unit known as The Hawks.

His colleagues say they have evidence

South Africa's special forces killed him,

and accuse the army of not giving them up to face justice.

Frans was a much-loved husband to Maria

and father to five children.

But all that changed when Frans was murdered on August 6 2023.

DOGS BARK How are you, man? Fine. Yourself?

VOICE-OVER: Colonel Tollie Vreugdenburg

has had a highly decorated 43-year career in the South African police,

during which he rose to become national head of counter-terrorism.

He and Mathipa were close friends and colleagues.

Before he retired in December 2022,

Colonel Vreugdenburg formally handed over

terrorism case files to Frans Mathipa.

Vreugdenburg says one of

these files led Mathipa to his death.

Vreugdenburg has now decided for the first time to speak publicly about

the fateful case he passed to his friend -

an investigation into suspected

ISIS militant Abdella Abadigga,

an Ethiopian man who had fled war in his country,

and granted temporary asylum in South Africa in 2008.

I first heard of Abadigga in 2020.

I was told he was a key figure in the group calling itself

Islamic State - or ISIS.

Abadigga was on Vreugdenburg's radar because he'd been arrested

in the Democratic Republic of Congo - or DRC - in October 2017.

He was attempting to meet up with one of the most notorious

armed groups in Africa, the Allied Democratic Forces,

which had started aligning itself with ISIS.

Abadigga was held in Ndolo Military Prison in Kinshasa.

Vreugdenburg says foreign intelligence services were notified.

VOICE-OVER: Vreugdenburg says South African intelligence services

also interviewed Abadigga.

Then, in February 2020, he was

told by a senior home affairs official

that Abadigga had been deported to Ethiopia.

But just four days later,

Abadigga was spotted back in Johannesburg.

When Vreugdenburg investigated how Abadigga managed

to get into the country,

he was shocked at what he discovered.

Two years later, in March 2022,

the United States sanctioned him as a key ISIS figure.

The US

alleged he extorted members of the mosque community,

financed ISIS supporters,

and recruited men into ISIS.

The US also described Abadigga as a trusted

supporter of Bilal al-Sudani, one of the

most significant ISIS figures operating in Africa.

Since his return from DRC, Abadigga had roamed free

in South Africa, never charged with a serious crime.

Vreugdenburg believes

that's because Abadigga was working as an intelligence asset.

Mm-hm.

The allegation that Abadigga worked for a domestic

or foreign intelligence agency has never been made publicly before.

But in December 2022,

his status to remain in South Africa as a refugee was withdrawn.

14 days later,

he drove to a shopping centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

CCTV shows Abadigga arriving in a Lexus at 9:55am.

He was accompanied by his Ethiopian bodyguard,

Kadir Abotese.

Abadigga and Abotese, wearing a hat,

then sat in the mall's food court.

Meanwhile, three cars arrived at the mall - a white BMW,

a white Mercedes van,

and a grey Audi.

They all parked in the same zone as Abadigga's car.

At 12:01pm,

Abadigga and his bodyguard left the food court

and were seen paying for their parking ticket

ten minutes later. This is the last known image of them alive.

Three seconds after Abadigga paid,

this man uses the same machine.

Major Sunnybooi Wambi,

a South African Army Special Forces officer.

It's unclear what happened next.

There were no cameras working where Abadigga had parked his car.

But CCTV did capture the white BMW and white Mercedes van

leaving just seven minutes after Wambi used the ticket machine.

Secret case documents we have obtained show police believe

Abadigga and Abotese were in these vehicles,

having been abducted by special forces.

Almost 4.5 hours later,

Wambi and a colleague returned to the mall in a grey Audi.

Seven minutes later, the grey Audi,

together with Abadigga's Lexus,

exited the mall.

We can reveal South African police

say they have evidence both vehicles

were driven to army operational headquarters.

But why would the army kidnap Abadigga

and who would have ordered it?

It would be another four months before Frans Mathipa

was assigned to investigate

the disappearance of Abadigga and his bodyguard.

We've come to the head office of The Hawks police unit,

where the Crimes against the State Directorate is based,

to meet Brigadier Paulina Sekgobela.

Good morning.

Sekgobela was Mathipa's commanding officer

and she assigned the case to him.

Mathipa moved quickly

to extract information from the military.

Mathipa requested the names of all soldiers at the Mall of Africa,

their cellphone numbers, the tracking data

for their vehicles, and their operational plan.

On August 4 2023, Mathipa's 53rd birthday,

senior military officers met him

and public prosecutors at Randburg Magistrates' Court.

This picture was taken after that meeting,

three months after Mathipa

had submitted his subpoena to special forces.

Police say the military promised him

they would finally hand over the soldiers' data.

However, Mathipa's trademark smile hid a terrible fear.

Frans Mathipa was murdered two days later,

on a Sunday.

After lunch with his family,

Mathipa took a bath.

His daughter, Basetsana,

recorded her memories from that day and sent them to us.

Police say that call came in at 12:55pm.

The man calling himself Tebogo said

he could only meet that day, says Basetsana.

A rendezvous was set at the BP Glenfair garage in Pretoria.

Police sources have told us that, while Mathipa waited,

he was not alone.

Police say they have

obtained cellphone tracking data that places the device

Tebogo used to call Mathipa inside that same BMW.

We have obtained photos of Mathipa's white Polo

driving down the highway with the BMW in pursuit.

The timestamp in the images

shows Mathipa's white Polo

pass at 6:05,

followed by the black BMW,

its licence plates removed, one second later.

Colonel Pieter Beukman,

one of Mathipa's friends and colleagues,

arrived at the scene later that evening.

Police state Mathipa was killed

by high-velocity rounds fired from weapons

special forces had access to.

Police also say facial comparison of toll footage identified

an occupant of the black BMW

as Major Sunnybooi Wambi.

Police say the BMW was registered

to Peters Communications Trust, a company linked to special forces.

We asked the South African Army

whether Major Wambi was involved in Mathipa's killing.

They did not respond.

In February 2024, special forces reported the BMW

stolen in an armed hijacking.

The Hawks allege the story was false and designed

to dispose of evidence connected to Mathipa's murder.

They later found the BMW hidden

in a back street at this property,

80 miles east of Johannesburg.

Police say tracking data placed it

at the scene of the killing.

In June 2025,

news of special forces' alleged involvement was made official.

12 members of the South African Army were arrested,

including Major Wambi and Major General Herbert Mashego,

the former head of 5 Special Forces.

So too the current head of special forces,

Brigadier General Solomon Lechoenyo.

All 12 deny wrongdoing.

But six of the 12 refused to hand themselves in to custody,

claiming food poisoning and hospitalisation.

Three years after Mathipa's killing, no trial date is in sight.

There's so much more on the twists and turns to this story

in the two-part documentary series...

You can find it on iPlayer and the World Service YouTube channel.

Thanks for joining me here in Malta.

Global Eye will be back next week. Goodbye.