Death and a Family’s Fight for Justice in Malta

 As a child growing up in Malta, Paul Caruana Galizia didn’t think much about how his mother regularly checked under the car for bombs.  

Such precautions were just part of being Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son. The investigative journalist was so well known in Malta — beloved and disliked — that everyone just called her Daphne.  

But such precautions were warranted. 

On October 16, 2017, a car bomb killed the journalist near her home in Bidnija. 

The fallout from the targeted killing has reverberated far beyond Malta’s rocky shores, but full justice remains elusive. 

“Everything is still a fight,” Caruana Galizia said.  

Six years after his mother’s death, Caruana Galizia — the youngest of three sons — explores in a new book his mother’s career, her devotion to exposing Maltese corruption, her killing and her legacy.  

Published Tuesday in the United States, A Death in Malta is simultaneously a memoir about a remarkable woman and a denunciation of the system that many say facilitated her death. 

Over a decades-long career as a columnist and blogger, Daphne Caruana Galizia largely focused on corruption in Malta.  

In doing so, she confronted harassment, death threats, lawsuits and arson attacks. After working at various Maltese newspapers, she started the blog Running Commentary, whose online readership rivaled Malta’s established newspapers.  

“She was shaped by Malta as much as she shaped it,” Caruana Galizia said.

Now based in London, Caruana Galizia has followed in his mother’s footsteps, working as a reporter for the news outlet Tortoise. He began work on the book in 2020 at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Caruana Galizia said he expected writing about his mother’s killing to be the hardest part of the project, but he found it even harder to write about her life.

“It’s an awkward thing to interview your maternal grandparents about your murdered mother,” he said.  

In the book, Caruana Galizia recounts the first year after the killing, when a whirlwind of advocacy brought him and his brothers around Europe to meet with lawmakers.  

As a result, his mother became an abstraction, and writing the book was an effort to prevent her from remaining one, he told VOA. 

“I wanted readers to know her, to really understand what she was trying to do through her journalism, where she came from, what she was about, and that she wasn’t a tragic figure, just the victim, someone you’re fascinated by for all the wrong reasons,” Caruana Galizia said.  

“The book is an attempt to restore some of her humanity to her,” he added.  

At the time of her death, Daphne Caruana Galizia had been working on the Panama Papers, a leak of millions of records that exposed widespread international corruption.

She concluded her last blog post, published the day before her killing, writing, “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.” 

Six years since her assassination, justice has been slow.  

Three men have been convicted for her murder, and three other suspects — including Yorgen Fenech, one of Malta’s wealthiest businessmen — are awaiting trial. Fenech pleaded not guilty. 

“While the convictions have been positive, the call for full justice will continue to be made until all those responsible are behind bars,” said Jamie Wiseman, Europe advocacy officer at the International Press Institute in Vienna.  

A public inquiry set up to investigate Daphne Caruana Galizia’s death concluded in a 437-page report in 2021 that “the state should shoulder responsibility for the assassination” because it has “created an atmosphere of impunity.”

The shadow of impunity in journalist killings can foster an environment in which more reporters risk deadly violence, press freedom groups say.

And nearly 80% of journalist killings around the world over the past decade remain unsolved, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The public inquiry issued recommendations as to how Malta’s government could improve press freedom, but progress has been minimal, Wiseman said.

Journalists in Malta are still targeted with strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, a form of legal action used to silence journalists in retaliation for their work.

The free expression group Article 19 reported in August that Malta is the country with the highest number of SLAPPs per capita in the European Union.

At the time of her killing, Daphne Caruana Galizia was battling over 40 libel lawsuits. 

Malta’s Washington Embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.  

“We’ve seen very little to no change,” Wiseman said, adding that the government has undertaken just one of many recommendations — by issuing an apology that Wiseman characterized as half-hearted at best. 

Both Caruana Galizia and Wiseman point to the absence of political will to explain why the government has failed to implement the majority of the public inquiry’s recommendations.  

Caruana Galizia also pointed out there has been no successful prosecution of any of the people whose corruption Daphne Caruana Galizia documented.  

Despite the slow progress, Caruana Galizia said he remains optimistic.  

“My brothers and I have always had the view that the moment you start losing faith is the moment it all falls apart,” he said. “You have to believe that a better country is possible. And you have to believe that we will get justice for my mother.”  

 
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