The son of an anti-corruption journalist killed by a car bomb on Malta has described finding her body in pieces.
Matthew Caruana Galizia, himself a journalist, said his mother, Daphne, had been assassinated for doing her job in investigating alleged corruption.
He described the horror of seeing ‘body parts all around me’ after arriving at the scene of the 53-year-old’s death, close to her home in Bidnija, on Monday.
Mr Caruana Galizia has accused Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of being ‘complicit’ in the grisly killing.
Matthew Caruana Galizia (left), himself a journalist, said his mother, Daphne (right), had been assassinated for doing her job in investigating alleged corruption
Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son Matthew (third from right) and husband Peter (to his right) walk past the wreckage of a car bomb that killed the journalist
Daphne Caruana Galizia (pictured) was a veteran journalist, once described as a ‘one-woman Wikileaks’, who used her widely-read blog to make a series of detailed allegations of corruption in Muscat’s inner circle, some based on the Panama Papers data leak
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a veteran journalist, once described as a ‘one-woman Wikileaks’, who used her widely-read blog to make a series of detailed allegations of corruption in Muscat’s inner circle, some based on the Panama Papers data leak.
Her killing has triggered an outpouring of grief on the island of just 430,000 people, with thousands turning out to an overnight candlelit vigil in her memory in the fortress capital Valletta.
Further ‘Justice for Daphne’ demonstrations were scheduled on Tuesday.
The journalist was the fourth person to die in a Malta car bombing in just over a year but previous attacks were all linked to criminal feuds and did not generate anything like the shock created by Caruana’s death.
The blackened tarmac shows where the explosion happened and the car’s path can be seen heading from the road into the field
Women light candles during a candlelight vigil in Sliema in tribute to late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
Thousands of people gathered for a candlelight vigil to remember Caruana Galizia who was killed by a car bomb close to her home in Bidnija, Malta
‘I am never going to forget, running around the inferno in the field, trying to figure out a way to open the door, the horn of the car still blaring, screaming at two policemen who turned up with a single fire extinguisher to use it,’ Matthew Caruana wrote.
‘They stared at me. “I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do”, one of them said.
‘I looked down and there were my mother’s body parts all around me. I realised they were right, it was hopeless.’
Muscat described the killing as ‘barbaric’ and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. But that pledge was dismissed by the victim’s son.
‘A culture of impunity has been allowed to flourish by the government in Malta,’ he wrote.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese investigative journalist who exposed her island nation’s links with the Panama Papers
Forensic experts walk in a field after a powerful bomb blew up a car (foreground) and killed investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Bidnija, Malta
‘It is of little comfort for the Prime Minister of this country to say that he will “not rest” until the perpetrators are found, when he heads a government that encouraged that same impunity.
‘If the institutions were already working, there would be no assassination to investigate – and my brothers and I would still have a mother.’
The judge in charge of investigating the murder stepped aside from the case on Tuesday following objections from the Caruana Galizia family that she was too close to the Labour Party administration.
Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera had been accused of misconduct by the blogger and had threatened her with libel proceedings.
Caruana Galizia’s death came four months after Muscat won a landslide victory in elections that were called early after she accused his wife of taking kickbacks from Azerbaijan’s ruling family and hiding the cash in a secret Panama bank account.
An ambulance is parked along the road where a car bomb exploded killing the journalist
Police and forensics experts stand behind a road block after a powerful bomb blew up the car
Police said she was killed as she was driving near the village of Bidnija in northern Malta
An ambulance and police vehicles are parked along the road where a car bomb exploded killing investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in the town of Mosta, Malta. The car can be seen in the field and the blackened tarmac where the explosion appeared to have happened is seen leading to the vehicle
The claims, which Muscat fervently denies, were the latest in a string of scandals on the island based on information leaked from the records of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.
The so-called Panama Papers revealed how wealthy individuals around the world, including a number of politicians, used shell companies based in the Latin American state and other tax havens to hide cash.
Among those exposed were Keith Schembri, Muscat’s chief of staff, and Konrad Mizzi, a government minister. The premier resisted pressure to fire the pair, insisting their accounts were related to their private business and they had done nothing illegal.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange offered a 20,000 euros reward for anyone who provided information about the attack leading to the conviction of those responsible.