Several thousand Maltese citizens rallied on Sunday to demand justice for an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb last Monday.
The Prime Minister and opposition leader, who were chief targets of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s reporting did not attend the rally in Malta’s capital, Valleta.
The demonstrations in Valletta were organised by the group Civil Society Network after the car bombing killed anti-corruption blogger Caruana Galizia, 53, in a murder that shocked the Mediterranean island.
Caruana Galizia spent much of the last few years reporting on Maltese links to the Panama Papers leaks.
Protestors calling for the resignation of Malta’s police commissioner shout slogans during a demonstration over the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered in a car bomb attack last Monday
People hold posters with the last published words of assassinated investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered in a car bomb attack last Monday, during a rally in Valletta, Malta, on Sunday
Young children joined their parents at the rally in Valletta calling for justice over the death of Caruana Galazia
Thousands gather during a national rally to demand justice for murdered Maltese journalist Caruana Galizia, 53
Caruana Galizia (left) was killed last Monday when a bomb destroyed her car as she was driving near her home in Mosta, a town outside Valletta, Maltaís capital, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said. Right, a protester holds-up a sign as thousands gather for a national rally to demand justice for for the journalist
Some of those present at the protest carried placards or wore T-shirts with the last words written by Caruana Galizia, minutes before she was killed: ‘There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.’
‘You remember, we gathered, almost three years ago, in Paris, after the Charlie Hebdo killing,’ Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of Reporters without Frontiers, told the crowd.
‘We have gathered today in Valletta for Daphne and everybody can say “I am Daphne, je suis Daphne”,’ he added.
Michael Briguglio, who heads the Civil Society Network, said the commissioner of police and the attorney general should be removed for not having acted following revelations in the so-called ‘Panama Papers’.
Police removed a banner describing Malta as a ‘Mafia state’.
Hundreds of participants held a sit-in outside police headquarters, demanding the resignation of Malta’s police commissioner.
Some hurled tomatoes, cakes and coins against an enlarged photograph of the commissioner spread out on the street.
A protestor hurls food at a banner, showing Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar (not seen), during a protest over the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
A banner with the photo of the Malta police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar is on the floor outside the Malta Police Headquarters as people throws coins, tomatoes and cheesecakes are thrown at it and at the facade during the rally
A banner with the photo of the Malta police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar is hung outside the Malta Police Headquarters after people threw coins, tomatoes and cheesecakes at it and at the facade during the rally
The homicide of a journalist who devoted her career to exposing wrongdoing in Malta and raised her three sons there united many of the nation’s oft-squabbling politicians, at least for a day.
Caruana Galizia had repeatedly criticized police and judicial officials.
Malta’s two dominant political forces, the ruling Labor and opposition Nationalist parties, participated in the rally which was organized to press demands for justice in her slaying.
But Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told his Labor party’s radio station a few hours before the event’s start time that he wouldn’t attend because he knew the anti-corruption reporter’s family didn’t want him to be there.
‘I know where I should be and where I should not be. I am not a hypocrite and I recognize the signs,’ Muscat said, adding that he supported the rally’s goals of call for justice and national unity.
Nationalist leader Adrian Delia also skipped the rally, saying he didn’t want to ‘stir controversy’.
Journalists without borders Christoph Deloire told a crowd at the rally that Caruana Galizia’s killers can’t ‘silence her spirit’
A lady holds up a banner with a quote from Caruana Galizia, reading: ‘There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate’
Thousands gathered in Malta’s capital, Valletta, for a rally demanding for justice for Caruana Galizia on Sunday
Malta’s two dominant political forces, the ruling Labor and opposition Nationalist parties, participated in the rally which was organized to press demands for justice in her slaying. But Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told his Labor party’s radio station a few hours before the event’s start time that he wouldn’t attend
‘Today is not about me, but about the rule of law and democracy,’ Delia told reporters.
Muscat and Delia, while fierce political rivals, have another thing in common: Both brought libel lawsuits against Caruana Galizia. Delia withdrew his pending libel cases last week after her killing.
Caruana Galizia’s family has refused to endorse the government’s offer of a 1million euro ($1.18million) reward and full protection to anyone with information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of her killer or killers.
Instead, the family, which includes a son who is an investigative journalist himself, has demanded that Muscat resign.
In their quest for a serious and efficient investigation, Caruana Galizia’s husband and children also want Malta’s top police office and attorney general replaced.
‘The killers decided to silence her, but they won’t silence her spirit, they won’t silence us,’ Christophe Deloire, a French journalist from the journalism advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders, said. ‘From us they will not have more than one minute of silence.’
Daphne Caruana Galizia, a renowned blogger and fierce critic of the government, died on Monday in a blast that wrecked her car as she was leaving her house in Mosta
Galizia, 53, ran a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged corruption, often involving politicians from the Mediterranean island of Malta. Police said she was killed as she was driving near the village of Bidnija in northern Malta
On Sunday morning, all seven national newspapers had their front pages black in Caruana Galizia’s memory. Printed in bold letters against the black backgrounds were the words: ‘The pen conquers fear.’
Just before her death, Caruana Galizia had posted on her closely followed blog, Running Commentary, that there were ‘crooks everywhere’ in Malta.
The island nation has a reputation as a tax haven in the European Union and has attracted companies and money from outside Europe.
The journalist focused her reporting for years on investigating political corruption and scandals, and reported on Maltese mobsters and the island’s drug trafficking. She also wrote about Maltese links to the so-called Panama Papers leaks about offshore financial havens.
After the rally ended, several hundred participants walked to police headquarters, and sat in the street outside shouting ‘Shame on you!’ and ‘Resign!
Malta President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca received a delegation from the Civil Society Network, a non-partisan organization of university professors, businessmen, opinion writers and authors in Malta.
In a news conference in Valletta, police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar denied British police would join Dutch forensic experts and a team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in helping with the case
European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans take part in a candlelight vigil in memory of Malta’s journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday
Matthew Caruana Galizia (centre) and Peter Caruana Galizia (second left), son and husband of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, walk past the wreckage of the car bomb
The car bombing was ‘an attack on all of us, every single one of us,’ Coleiro Preca told them. ‘We need to see how we are going to work together. We need to unite to have the reform that is needed.’
Caruana Galizia, 53, ran a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged corruption, often involving politicians from the Mediterranean island of Malta.
Police said she was killed as she was driving near the village of Bidnija in northern Malta.
Police believe the bomb was attached beneath Caruana Galizia’s car and triggered remotely with a mobile phone.
‘Emerging evidences make us think that the bomb was placed under the car and was set off with a remote trigger,’ a government spokeswoman said on Thursday, adding that foreign experts would be called on to help identify the mobile phone which was used to detonate the bomb.
The island has seen a number of small bomb attacks in recent years tied to gangland criminals, but the explosives used were relatively rudimentary and did not have the same power as the device that targeted Caruana Galizia.